The Importance of Service in Grand Slam Singles Tennis

O'Donoghue, G.; Brown, Emily

doi:10.1080/24748668.2008.11868449

Cited by 64 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Kuper, Sierksma, & Spieksma, 2014;Scheibehenne & Brofer, 2007), but in particular when the match is in progress (e.g. Klaassen & Magnus, 2003;O'Donoghue & Brown, 2008). Yet, D despite the existence of these types of studies, the use of rankings in the evaluation of professional tennis players is still considered a rich but underused source of information .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entering tennis men’s Grand Slams within the top-10 and its relationship with the fact of winning the tournament. [Acceder a los Grand Slams de tenis masculino desde el top-10 y su relación con el hecho de ganar el torneo].

Bermejo¹,

Ruano²

2016

Rev. int. cienc. deporte

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The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between entering tennis men's singles Grand Slams within the top-10 ranking (i.e. title favourites) and the fact of winning the tournament. In order to differentiate between these players in a more powerful way than just considering the ranking number, a cluster algorithm was used to classify the players into two groups depending on their number of ranking points (i.e. higher level top-10 players vs. lower level top-10 players). The possible winners entering the tournament outside the top-10 (if any) were also considered. The sample comprised all the 92 men's singles Grand Slams played between 1990 and 2012. As was expected, the majority of Grand Slams were won by players entering the tournament ranked in the top-10. However, the main result is contrary to the hypothesis that there would be significant differences in the number of titles won in favour of the players entering the tournament from the higher positions of the top-10 when comparing to those won by the players entering from the lower positions of the top-10. Several factors that may influence whether and to what extent a player is more or less favourite to win a Grand Slam title are presented in the discussion.Key words: ATP world tour, professional tennis, performance analysis, top-10 ranking. AbstractCorrespondence/correspondencia: Jaime Prieto Bermejo Universidad Complutense de Madrid. España Email: jaimeprietobermejo@gmail.com El propósito del estudio fue analizar la relación entre acceder a los Grand Slam de tenis masculino desde el top-10 del ranking (favoritos al título) y el hecho de ganar el torneo. Con el objeto de diferenciar a estos jugadores de una forma más potente que simplemente considerando su número de ranking, se empleó un algoritmo cluster que clasificó a los jugadores en dos grupos en función del número de puntos de ranking (jugadores de mayor nivel dentro del top-10 v. jugadores de menor nivel del top-10). Los posibles ganadores del torneo accediendo al mismo desde posiciones fuera del top-10 (si los hubiera) fueron también considerados. La muestra comprendió los 92 torneos de Grand Slam masculinos jugados entre 1990 y 2012. Según lo esperado, la mayoría de Grand Slams fueron ganados por jugadores que accedieron al torneo dentro de los diez primeros clasificados del ranking. Sin embargo, el principal resultado es contrario a la hipó-tesis de que existirían diferencias significativas entre el número de títulos ganados en favor de los jugadores que accedían a los torneos desde las primeras posiciones del top-10 cuando se comparan con aquellos títulos ganados por los jugadores que accedían desde las posiciones más bajas del top-10. Múltiples factores que pueden influir en el hecho de que un jugador sea más o menos favorito para ganar un torneo de Grand Slam son discutidos.Plabras clave: circuito ATP, tenis profesional, análisis del rendimiento, ranking top-10. Resumen

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entering tennis men’s Grand Slams within the top-10 and its relationship with the fact of winning the tournament. [Acceder a los Grand Slams de tenis masculino desde el top-10 y su relación con el hecho de ganar el torneo].

Bermejo¹,

Ruano²

2016

Rev. int. cienc. deporte

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…shots (O'Donoghue & Brown, 2008), our findings that short rally and long rally in the service game of Novak Djokovic helped him to win more points than medium rally. In return game, he could win more points in medium to long rallies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…Table 2). Former studies has discussed the tactical rationale of altering serve speed in first or second serve (Gillet et al, 2009;Hizan et al, 2011;O'Donoghue & Brown, 2008), and the result of the cluster analysis was consistent with that. The serve and return of serve was separately grouped into fast and slow speed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

“…The importance of serve and return performance in four Grand Slams have been widely addressed in previous studies (Hizan et al, 2014;O'Donoghue & Brown, 2009;O'Donoghue & Brown, 2008;Reid & Morris, 2013;Whiteside & Reid, 2016b) and been treated as the two most important performance variables in tennis match (Gillet et al, 2009;Hizan et al, 2011;Unierzyski & Wieczorek, 2004). Consistent with former studies (Gillet et al, 2009;Hizan et al, 2011), the results indicated that in all Grand Slams, female players had an optimal first serve in percentage of round 60% and still used a "fast-weak" serving strategies.…”

Section: Serve and Return Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Players had better efficiency in Wimbledon, they may win more points rather than making unforce errors and had higher dominance ratio of achieving more points in return game rather than losing points in own service game. A potential explanation is that in Wimbledon, the faster surface speed shortened the rally number and increased the rally rate, as a result it was easier for players to strike more direct winners (O'Donoghue & Ingram, 2001;O'Donoghue & Brown, 2008).…”

Section: Technical and Physical Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring match performance of elite tennis players : the multifactorial game-related effects in Grand Slams

Cui¹

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Tennis is a complex and dynamic sport where coaches are required to prescribe accurate training programming and match planning, and players are expected to execute the strategy by constantly adjusting their tactics, in order to increase the winning probability. Match performance analysis provides them with accurate, valid and less subjective information that is beneficial for the improvement of player behaviors. Currently, the research of performance analysis in tennis is a well-established realm that addresses the technical-tactical, physical and physiological performance of players. However, there still exist some limitations that need to be further solved, such as the lack of consideration of contextual constraints, the exclusive focus on general performance instead of accounting for within-player variation in personal attributes and performance, and the failure to assess the non-linear relationships among different influencing components from macro-, meso-, micro-and nano-level and match performance. Therefore, in order to address these issues, five independent and correlated studies were undertaken in the thesis.The first study analyzed the set-to-set variation in performance using match statistics of 146 completed main-draw matches in Australian Open and US Open 2016-2017 men's singles.Comparisons of technical-tactical and physical performance variables were done among different sets; and the coefficients of variation (CV) of these variables were contrasted between match winning and losing players. All comparisons were realized via standardized (Cohen's d) mean differences and uncertainty in the true differences were assessed using nonclinical magnitude-based inferences. Results showed that there was possibly to very likely decreases in serve, net and running related variables and an increase in return and winner related variables in the last sets when compared to the initial sets, indicating the influence of match fatigue and the player's adaption of match tactics and pacing strategy. Besides, winning players were revealed to have lower CV values in most of performance variables except for second serve, winner, and physical performance variables, which indicated that they would sacrifice the consistency to gain more aggressiveness and to dominate the match.The second study was aimed to (i) analyze the match performance of professional female tennis players in different Grand Slams; (ii) model the relationships between match performance variables and ranking-based relative quality; and (iii) build typical performance profiles for female players in Grand Slams using regression-based approach. Data of a total of X 1369 matches were collected within 2014-2017 four Grand Slams. Correlations between 37 performance variables and relative quality were determined and automatically classified into two groups of magnitudes via two-step cluster analysis. Higher-correlated variables were used to build players' typical performance profiles via regression-based technique to give percentage evaluation scores (%ES). Player...

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