Using a Situation Awareness Approach to Identify Differences in the Performance Profiles of the World’s Top Two Squash Players and Their Opponents

Abstract

Purpose The pressure exerted on a squash player is a consequence of the quality of a shot coupled with the ability of the player to return the ball, namely, the coupling of the two players’ situation awareness (SA) abilities. SA refers to an awareness of all relevant sources of information, the ability to synthesize this information using domain knowledge and the ability to physically respond to a situation. Methods Matches involving the two best players in the world ( n = 9) at the 2011 Rowe British Grand Prix, held in Manchester, United Kingdom were recorded and processed using Tracker software. Shot type, ball location, players’ positions on court and movement parameters between the time an opponent played a shot prior to the player’s shot to the time of the opponent’s following shot were captured 25 times per second. All shots (excluding serves and rally ending shots) produced five main SA clusters, similar to those presented by Murray et al. (2018) , except a greater proportion of shots were categorized in the greater pressure clusters and less in the lower pressure ones. Results Individual matches were presented using cluster performance profile infographics which demonstrated how individual player’s performance profiles differed between matches. Conclusion It is suggested that it is the coupling, of the two player’s behaviors, that makes the examination of tactics so challenging. This inherently means that performance profiles vary in subtle ways, making consistent profiles that are independent of the opponent very unlikely for elite players. This approach should be further modified to determine within match changes in performance.

Situation Awareness in sports: A scoping review

“…The findings of our literature search revealed that Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA) and Endsley's (1995b) three-level frameworks were the overwhelming SA frameworks discussed in a sporting context. Four articles described Endsley's (1995b) three-level framework (Caserta & Singer, 2007;Knez & Ham, 2006;Murray, 2018;Ng et al, 2013). Four articles employed the framework of DSA to a variety of sports which included research on athletes, coaches, and officials (Macquet & Stanton, 2014;Salmon et al, 2017).…”

“…Endsley's (1995b) three-level framework was described in four papers investigating SA in cyclists (Knez & Ham, 2006), tennis players (Caserta & Singer, 2007), basketball players (Ng et al, 2013), and squash players (Murray, 2018). As mentioned previously, Endsley's (1995b) three-level framework contains hierarchal levels of perception, comprehension, and projection.…”

Examining the Relationship between International Sports Organizations and Sports Awareness

“…As a consequence, it is possible to conclude that the studies are primarily concerned with national or international sports policy. In research on sports awareness these topics are found; situation awareness in sports (Huffman et al, 2022), cognitive skills, visual behaviors, decision-making, foresight (Caserta and Singer 2007;McCrozier et al, 2015;McGuckian et al, 2020;Murray, 2018), etc. It has been monitored that studies have been realized on these subjects.…”

Research on Badminton Teaching Technology Based on Human Pose Estimation Algorithm

“…e key performance indicators of badminton are mainly reflected in the use of court areas, stroke distribution, technical movements, and stroke effectiveness. Like tennis [5][6][7], squash [8][9][10], and table tennis [11][12][13], the key performance indicators are mainly reflected in tactics. A successful badminton matchup will hold the opponent in spatial pressure to hit the badminton to the opponent's most disadvantageous area.…”