Abstract
Adapting competitions to young players’ characteristics is an important pillar in the optimal teaching–learning process. The objective of the present study is to analyze the effect of modifying net height (from 0.91 to 0.80 m) and court dimensions (from 23.77 × 8.23 m to 18 × 8.23 m) for under-10 (U-10) tennis players on the following: (a) kinds of technical and tactical basic, situational, and special strokes; (b) tennis players’ hitting area; (c) landing location of the serve; (d) ball landing location after the serve; (d) stroke effectiveness; and (e) rally length. The study design was quasi-experimental in nature, observing the fluctuation/change in technical–tactical variables of the tennis players when playing a “Tennis 10s Green Competition” (GC) with the current federative rules and a redesigned competition “Modified Competition” (MC) including altered net height and court dimensions based on small-sided games (SSGs) and equipment scaling. Twenty U-10 tennis players were studied (age of players = 9.46 ± 0.66 years, average weekly training in tennis = 2.90 ± 1.07 h, years of experience = 3.65 ± 1.53 years). The results showed that in MC, there was a greater technical–tactical variability compared with the GC in terms of the following: (a) greater service effectiveness; (b) more situational and special strokes; and (c) a more equitable change in the distribution of hitting and ball landing locations. The values of MC showed that the current adaptation rules and equipment in federated U-10 competitions might not be enough to improve the teaching–learning process under the comprehensive approach. The current competition for U-10 tennis players (stage green) should be redesigned, in order to build an optimal process of affordances to develop a multidimensional positive impact during this training stage.
Highlights
Competition is a dynamic and complex formative environment if it is accurately conducted at early training stages because of its multidimensional effect on many factors (Schmidhofer et al, 2014; Bayer et al, 2017; Krause et al, 2019)
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of Modified Competition” (MC) by reducing net height and court dimensions, besides observing the differences with the current U-10 tennis players’ competition (GC) in the following technical–tactical aspects: (a) basic, situational, and special technical–tactical kinds of strokes; (b) players’ hitting area; (c) ball landing location of the serve; (d) ball landing location after the serve; (e) ball trajectory after the serve; (f) stroke effectiveness; and (g) rally length
The values found in terms of the total basic strokes made in each competition show great similarity between both competitions (Table 2), not appreciating statistically significant differences between Green Competition” (GC) and MC [t = 1.570, df = 19, mean difference (MD) = 7.79]
Summary
Competition is a dynamic and complex formative environment if it is accurately conducted at early training stages because of its multidimensional effect on many factors (Schmidhofer et al, 2014; Bayer et al, 2017; Krause et al, 2019). There has been an increasing amount of literature about the research topic in the following sports: (a) tennis (Bayer et al, 2017; Fitzpatrick et al, 2017; Limpens et al, 2018); (b) basketball (Ortega et al, 2015); (c) soccer (Casal et al, 2017; Ortega-Toro et al, 2018); (d) handball (García-Angulo et al, 2019); (e) cricket (Elliott et al, 2005; Harwood et al, 2018; Takamido et al, 2019); (f) rugby (Bennett et al, 2016; Morley et al, 2016; Elliott et al, 2019); (g) volleyball (Gillham and Gut, 2012); and (h) flag football (Burton et al, 2011a) Overall, these studies highlight that the need for adapting competition at early training does not provide an integral development of young athletes (Burton et al, 2011b; Ortega et al, 2015; Buszard et al, 2016; Gonçalves et al, 2016; McCarthy et al, 2016). The goal of this comprehensive approach is to adapt the competition holistically to young players by modifying the rules of the game, rules of the league, sports equipment, and playing spaces (task constraints) (Buszard et al, 2016; McCarthy et al, 2016; Hastie et al, 2017; Oppici et al, 2017; Ortega-Toro et al, 2018)
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