Differences in ball speed and accuracy of tennis groundstrokes between elite and high‐performance players

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to identify and compare ball speed and hitting accuracy of forehand and backhand groundstrokes between ATP professionals (elite) and high-performance youth players when shots were played cross-court and down the line to a target square. Six elite and seven high-performance tennis players volunteered to participate in the study. A Doppler-radar device and a digital video camera, operating at 120 frames per second, were used to measure ball speed and accuracy of forehand and backhand groundstrokes in the respective situation (cross-court and down the line). The results of 1040 measured groundstrokes indicate that the ball speed of the forehand and the backhand ground stroke was higher in the elite group when analysing (1) all valid shots, (2) the six fastest shots, and (3) the six most accurate shots (all P B 0.05). In addition, all players achieved a higher forehand speed compared with their backhand when balls were directed cross-court (P B 0.01). The participants demonstrated similar ability when considering accuracy of their groundstrokes (P ! 0.05). However, a group difference for accuracy was identified when considering the six fastest forehand shots (P B0.05), and the forehand cross-court stroke was played more accurately than the backhand cross-court stroke by both groups (valid shots and six most accurate shots, P B0.05). Moreover, there was no evidence that players who impacted the ball faster were any less accurate than those who impacted the ball more slowly. Analyses for participants actually revealed a negative correlation between ball speed and mean radial error (accuracy) for the backhand down the line (r0 (0.77, P B0.01). According to the results of this study, ball speed seems to be the determining factor that separates elite from sub-elite tennis players.

Assessing personal talent determinants in young racquet sport players: a systematic review

“…In total, 20 studies focused on physical natural abilities, including 18 studies based on a cross-sectional design and 2 studies on a (multi-cohort) longitudinal design. The methodological quality evaluation for validity yielded good (n = 1) (Panjan et al, 2010), fair (n = 10) (Faber, Oosterveld, & Nijhuis-Van Der Sanden, 2014;Filipčič & Filipčič, 2005a, 2005bFilipčič, Pisk, & Filipčič, 2010;Filipčič & Završki, 2002;Leone & Larivière, 1998;Mantis et al, 1998;Nikolić, Furjan-Mandić, & Kondrič, 2014;Roetert, Brown, Piorkowskil, & Woods, 1996;Roetert et al, 1992), to poor (n = 9) (Amusa, Toriola, & Dhaliwal, 2002;Bencke et al, 2002;Elliott, Ackland, Blanksby, & Bloomfield, 1990;Girard & Millet, 2009;Karnia et al, 2010;Landlinger, Stöggl, Lindinger, Wagner, & Müller, 2012;Roetert, Piorkowski, Woods, & Brown, 1995;Van Den Berg, Coetzee, & Pienaar, 2006;Ziemann, Sledziewska, Grywacz, Gibson, & Wierzba, 2011) ratings. Most instruments found for measuring physical natural abilities were rated from negative based on moderate evidence (-) to conflicting findings (+/-).…”

“…forehand or backhand stroke) seem to have a significant relation with performance results in tennis at that time (Landlinger et al, 2012;Roetert et al, 1992). However, these relations are quite logical as such tasks are part of regular training and/or matches and might not be good indicators for measuring physical natural abilities.…”

Relación entre parámetros técnicos y fisiológicos en tenistas de competición / Relationship Between Technical and Physiological Parameters in Competition Tennis Players

“…Se han observado relaciones entre el rendimiento competitivo en jugadores de competición y parámetros tanto técnicos como fisiológicos (Birrer et al, 1986;Vergauwen et al, 1998;Smekal et al, 2000;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Banzer, Thiel, Rosenhagen y Vogt, 2008;Baiget et al, 2014). Aunque se ha descrito el perfil fisiológico (Smekal et al, 2000;Baiget et al, 2008) y técnico (Vergauwen et al, 1998;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Moya et al, 2010;Landlinger et al, 2012;Baiget et al, 2014) de tenistas de competición en relación a pruebas de resistencia o de rendimiento de golpeo, existe poca información sobre la relación entre estos parámetros determinantes del rendimiento.…”

“…La imprevisibilidad en la duración de los puntos, la elección de los golpes, la estrategia, el tiempo total de juego, el oponente o las condiciones climáticas influyen en la solicitación fisiológica del tenis (Kovacs, 2006). Durante los últimos años ha aumentado considerablemente el interés para evaluar parámetros fisiológicos y técnicos mediante protocolos específicos llevados a cabo en la misma pista de tenis (Vergauwen, Spaepen, Lefevre y Hespel, 1998;Smekal et al, 2000;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Landlinger, Stöggl, Lindinger, Wagner y Müller, 2012;Baiget et al, 2014). Se han propuesto pruebas de rendimiento de golpeo en las cuales se evalúa la capacidad de los jugadores de dirigir la pelota hacia una zona determinada de la pista (Vergauwen et al, 1998;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Moya, Bonete, y Santos-Rosa, 2010) o la velocidad y precisión de golpeo (Landlinger et al, 2012).…”

“…Durante los últimos años ha aumentado considerablemente el interés para evaluar parámetros fisiológicos y técnicos mediante protocolos específicos llevados a cabo en la misma pista de tenis (Vergauwen, Spaepen, Lefevre y Hespel, 1998;Smekal et al, 2000;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Landlinger, Stöggl, Lindinger, Wagner y Müller, 2012;Baiget et al, 2014). Se han propuesto pruebas de rendimiento de golpeo en las cuales se evalúa la capacidad de los jugadores de dirigir la pelota hacia una zona determinada de la pista (Vergauwen et al, 1998;Vergauwen et al, 2004;Moya, Bonete, y Santos-Rosa, 2010) o la velocidad y precisión de golpeo (Landlinger et al, 2012). Para la evaluación de la resistencia específica la mayoría de pruebas utilizan tests incrementales (Smekal et al, 2000;Baiget, Iglesias y Rodríguez, 2008;Girard, Chevalier, Leveque, Micallef y Millet, 2006;Ferrauti, Kinner y Fernandez, 2011;Baiget et al, 2014).…”