Match activity and physiological responses during a junior female singles tennis tournament

Abstract

Objective: To assess physiological load in conjunction with individual patterns of match-play activity in junior female tennis players during actual singles tennis competition. Methods: Eight elite junior female tennis players (n = 8; mean (SD) age, 17.3 (1.9) years) took part in a 2 day invitational tournament. Activity pattern analysis was performed during competitive matches. Heart rate and blood lactate concentrations were measured during selected changeovers breaks in play. Results: The activity profile of junior female players were: rally duration, (mean (SD)) 8.2 (5.2) s; rest time between rallies, 17.7 (6.5) s; effective playing time, 21.9 (3.8)%; strokes per rally, 2.7 (1.7); changes of direction per rally, 2.3 (1.4). The mean (SD) heart rate and blood lactate concentration recorded during the matches were 161 (5) beats/min and 2.0 (0.8) mmol/litre. Heart rate and blood lactate concentration values were influenced by the characteristics of the match and mean (SD) heart rate was significantly higher (p = 0.004) during service games (166 (15.4) beats/min) than in return games (156 (19.6) beats/min), while blood lactate concentrations were not significantly different (p = 0.83) between service (2.3 (0.6) mmol/litre) and return games (2.3 (0.9) mmol/litre). We found a significant (p,0.05) positive relationship between rally duration, strokes per rally, changes of direction and blood lactate and heart rate responses, with stronger correlations when the players were serving. Conclusions: The physiological (ie, blood lactate and heart rate) responses associated with match play were influenced by the characteristics of the match (rally duration, strokes per rally and changes of direction), with higher heart rate on service position. Training programs should reflect these demands placed on female players during competitive match play.T he physical aspects related to singles tennis performance have been quite well studied in male participants. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Tennis match play is characterised by short bouts of intermittent exercise interrupted by several periods of longer duration and lower intensity. 7 Matches vary substantially in duration, often lasting more than an hour and in some cases more than 5 h. 4 7-9 Most matches consist of work and rest periods of 5-10 s and 10-20 s, respectively, interspersed with longer rest periods (ie, 90 s between changeover breaks). 7 During each point, players typically hit the ball an average of 2-3 times and make four directional changes per rally. 10 11 Match activity, however, can be influenced by factors such as court surface, ball type and sex. 12 13 In this regard, O'Donoghue and Ingram 12 have reported that rallies analysed in Grand Slam women's singles matches were significantly longer (7.1 s/rally) than those in men's singles matches (5.2 s/rally), together with a greater proportion of baseline rallies in women's singles. In addition, women played significantly less strokes/s, hit fewer aces, won fewer service games and committed more double faults. Although th...

Physiological responses and match characteristics in professional tennis players during a one-hour simulated tennis match

“…USA) was used for the analysis of the matches, and the analysis of all of the matches was performed by the same experienced researcher. A match protocol developed by Smekal et al (2001), which had been shown to be reliable (Fernandez et al, 2007, 2008; Mendez-Villanueva et al, 2007, 2010) was used to monitor and record the duration of each game and each rally, the duration of the rest intervals between games and changeover breaks, as well as the number of shots per rally. On the basis of these data, the following variables were calculated for each game: 1- the duration of the rallies in seconds (DR); 2 - the rest time in seconds, not including changes of ends (RT); 3 - the work-torest ratio, not including changes of ends (W:R); 4 - effective playing time (EPT; expressed as a percentage of the total time when the ball was in play during a game); and 5 - strokes per rally (SPR; strokes·min-1).…”

“…Further studies have investigated performance responses in matches, using methods such as time-motion analysis (Gomes et al, 2011; Vickery et al, 2014) and activity profiles (Fernandez et al, 2007, 2008, 2009b) in players of different levels.…”

“…Differences in match characteristics, such as duration of a rally and stroke per rally related to different playing situations, have also been reported to affect match play physiological responses, with the average HR, RPE and LA- being significantly higher for serving than return games (Fernandez et al, 2009a). It has been observed that match characteristics and physiological responses differ significantly for male and female singles tennis matches (Fernandez et al, 2007; Mendez-Villanueva et al, 2007). Mendez-Villanueva et al (2007) investigated physiological demands of a male professional singles tennis tournament, finding higher LA- and RPE in matches with longer rallies and higher numbers of strokes per rally.…”

Match activity and physiological load in wheelchair tennis players: a pilot study

“…Rallies duration and the shots per rally were encoded as has been carried out in other studies. [17][18][19] From these data, the following variables were calculated for the six matches analysed:…”

Características físicas y antropométricas, y análisis de juego en jugadores de pádel de elite

“…Al igual que en otros deportes de raqueta, en el pádel, la actividad física implica esfuerzos de alta intensidad como sprints, saltos y golpeos agresivos de la pelota, intercalados con periodos de baja o nula intensidad (Martin, 2013). En las investigaciones precedentes se han analizado las características antropométricas, fisiológicas y de juego en otros deportes de raqueta como el tenis (Christmass et al, 1998;Ferrauti et al, 2001;Méndez-Villanueva et al, 2007;Méndez-Villanueva et al, 2010;Kovacs, 2007;Girard y Millet, 2009;Fernández-Fernández et al, 2007;Fernández-Fernández et al, 2008;Fernández-Fernández et al, 2009), el badminton (Faude et al, 2007;Cabello y González-Badillo, 2003;Torres et al, 2004), el squash (Wells et al, 2004;Vuckovic et al, 2004;Girard et al, 2007) o el tenis de mesa (Zagatto et al, 2010), dichas investigaciones han contribuido al desarrollo del juego y a concretar las necesidades específicas de cada uno de ellos.…”