Tennis Competitions Research Articles

Epidemiology of Injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association Women's Tennis: 2014-2015 Through 2018-2019.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has sponsored women's tennis programs since 1966. Women's tennis has risen in global prominence and popularity within the NCAA. Continued surveillance of athletic injuries in the NCAA is critical for identifying emerging injury trends and assessing injury prevention strategies. Exposure and injury data collected in the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program from 2014-2015 through 2018-2019 were analyzed. Injury counts, rates, and proportions were used to describe injury characteristics, and injury rate ratios were used to examine differential injury rates. The overall injury rate was 4.16 per 1000 athlete exposures. Injury to the shoulder, foot, and trunk were the most prevalent throughout the study period. Approximately 30% of all injury diagnoses were related to inflammatory conditions. Also, 32.1% of all injuries were time-loss injuries, and 45.0% of all injuries were non-time-loss injuries. The findings of this study differed slightly from those of previous investigations, most notably with regard to injury rate by season segment and commonly injured body parts. Future surveillance efforts should attempt to capture the nuances of tennis competitions.

Design and Development of an Android App Based on Firebase in the Study of Unsportsmanlike Behaviors in Grassroots Tennis Competitions

This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of an android application based on the Google Firebase platform aimed to facilitate the creation of questionnaires and collection of data for the management of sports and unsportsmanlike behaviors in grassroots tennis competitions. Although sportsmanship among players is the most common situation, in low categories sometimes aggressive or violent situations may occur and not always with the presence of referees. In recent years, the use of conventional questionnaires has been the most widespread tool to obtain information on sports and unsportsmanlike behaviors in sports competitions. The developed system allows tennis tournament organizers to easily create forms linked to the players in order to evaluate different psychological aspects during the competition. Players are notified and they answer the proposed questions on their mobile devices at the end of the matches. By using the application it is easy to collect the responses of the competitors and process and evaluate them. The developed system is based on a client-server architecture where the Firebase platform acts as system server and the application is the client that communicates with it. The application was validated by a tournament administrator showing a high level of usability. Afterwards it has been tested in a real tournament with 20 players (in a total of 34 matches) answering a form consisting of 13 questions to evaluate sports and unsportsmanlike behaviors. The results in this pilot tournament showed the perception of sportsmanship of the players as very good, but also showed that parents or companions interfere in children’s matches and two potential cases of unsportsmanlike conduct were detected. This system may become a versatile and useful tool for improvement of players’ psychological wellbeing during grassroots tennis competitions.

Early Warning System of Tennis Sports Injury Risk Based on Mobile Computing

In recent years, sports injuries in professional tennis players have gradually increased and sports injuries will break the sports training system and affect the long-term growth of new tennis players. Avoiding athlete injuries has become an important factor in improving training quality and game performance and ensuring the sustainable development of young tennis players’ competitiveness. Therefore, this article will use the RBF neural network algorithm and cluster analysis method to establish a tennis sports injury risk early warning model and finally establish a tennis sports injury risk early warning system so that tennis players can reduce their injuries. In this article, we use the questionnaire survey method, expert interview method, mathematical statistics method, and logical analysis method to investigate and analyze the results of training injuries of Chinese tennis players and coaches. The experimental results in this article show that among 48 tennis players of different ages, who are participating in formal training and tennis competitions, 15 young tennis players have been injured more than 6 times, accounting for 31.2% of the total; 20 have been injured 3 to 6 times, accounting for 41.7% of the total; 9 of them have been injured several times, accounting for 18.8% of the total; and 4 have been injured, accounting for 8.3% of the total. After using the tennis sports injury risk warning system based on the algorithm of RBF neural network in mobile computing, the tennis sports injury rate has dropped to 5%. It can be seen that the system has high feasibility and practicability.

Playing tennis in hot environment: Applied strategies and new directions

Many tennis competitions are held in hot ambient conditions, which can negatively affect endurance, mental and cognitive functioning and/or motor performance. The purpose of this article is to take stock of the physical techniques and psychological strategies that tennis players can use to counteract the negative effect of the heat. In addition, a new direction based on the mindfulness technic is proposed in this article.

Return to tennis guidelines

The global COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on tennis. Movement restrictions imposed by governments have resulted in the suspension of the international tennis calendar. Once these restrictions have been relaxed, it may be possible to organise sporting competitions again with or, most likely in the short term at least, without spectators. The primary aim of this document is to set guidelines for minimum and recommended standards for the organisation of tennis competitions. This document has been developed in accordance with the WHO guidelines on the organisation of sports events and with input from the Chair of the ITF Sport Science & Medicine Commission. It is intended to supplement the existing organisational requirements for ITF events, rather than a substitute for them.

Notational analysis in female grand slam tennis competitions

Grand Slam tennis tournaments are played on different surfaces. The aims of the present study were to analyse the technical differences in the Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open or AO, Roland Garros or RG, Wimbledon or W, and the United States Open or US), as well as to establish differences between winning and losing players. A total of 580 sets in 248 matches played in Grand Slams between 2017 and 2018 were analysed. To observe differences between the tournaments, a one-way analysis of variance (Kruskal Wallis) with the Bonferroni post-hoc test was performed. Univariate (Wilcoxon test) analysis of data was carried out to show the differences between the winning and losing performances of sets. Players who had more aces, points won on the 1st serve, winning shots and net points won more matches in the AO, W and US than in the RG (p<.05). However, in RG, players won more receiving points (43.56% of the points played) with chances to break the opponents’ service game. The results also showed that the winning players were superior in both service and receiving, and the most influential variables on the outcome of the match were percentage of receiving points won, break points won, and percentage of points won on the first serve. Such knowledge may have implications in the design of appropriate game strategies and specific training sessions to improve performance in professional women’s tennis.

Footwork technique used in elite table tennis matches

Notational and Match analysis are very well-recognized methods to collect information about the most common technical-tactical performance indicators in table tennis: footwork and stroke types. The aim of this study was to compare footwork distributions in men (M) and women (W) elite table tennis competitions. Nine men’s and nine women’s matches were analyzed. All players were in the top 120 (M) and 111 (W) positions of the ITTF world ranking. An expert coach analyzed game video recordings in slow motion with the software Kinovea and collected data about the footwork types used by the players during the games. The results showed differences between M and W: M prefer to use one step (35.6%, W: 21.9%), W prefer to hit the ball without performing any step (W: 40.2%, M: 20.4%), the chasse is equally used (M: 19.7%, W: 21.7%), and the crossover is mainly used by M (11.1%, W: 3.7%). The pivot is mainly used by M (9.9%, W: 7.8%), and W prefer the slide (4.9%, M: 3.2%). In conclusion, this study can be useful for physical trainers, performance analysts, and coaches, to design specific footwork training sessions for M and W elite table tennis players.

Improvement of table tennis technology based on data mining in the environment of wireless sensor networks

With the development of Internet of things technology, the combination of Internet of things technology and sports competition parameter collection technology, so as to carry out rapid and accurate retrieval and positioning of technology and tactics, has innovation in the current research field. In the high-level table tennis competition, the use of technology and tactics is closely related to the gain and loss of points. At present, the traditional table tennis video mining algorithm has some problems such as low efficiency and poor performance of optimization classification. Based on this, this article introduces the big data platform of the wireless sensor networks to construct the table tennis match database, realizing the real-time updating of table tennis match parameters and the call of historical data at any time. Then establishing a data mining model to realize the data and dynamic analysis of table tennis matches. Finally, based on this strategic analysis system, the data collected from two table tennis competitions are simulated, and the tactical recommendation of theoretical analysis is obtained, which provides a theoretical basis for the digitization of table tennis sports.

Antecedents and Consequences of Outward Emotional Reactions in Table Tennis.

The purpose of the present study was to shed light on the behavioral component of emotions by investigating antecedents and consequences of outward emotional reactions during table tennis competitions. With regards to the antecedents of outward emotional reactions, in line with appraisal theories, we considered the importance and the controllability of the situation as two important constructs. Fifteen table tennis matches, involving in total 21 players (7 females) with a mean age of 16.71 (SD = 0.70), were video recorded during the finals of the youth National Championship in Greece. Based on the footage, outward emotional reactions after every point were classified as neutral, positive, or negative. Situational factors in relation to the scoring system, bearing the importance and the controllability of the situation, were formed to assess antecedents of outward emotional reactions. To measure the consequences of outward emotional reactions, the impact on the outcome of the next point was assessed. Generalized linear models with a logit link were computed separately for positive outward emotional reactions after having won a point and negative outward emotional reactions after having lost a point. In general, the results show that while situational factors bearing the importance of the situation could predict positive and negative outward emotional reactions, the effects of situational factors bearing the controllability of the situation were less conclusive. In addition, the results also showed interactive effects between the two constructs for both positive and negative outward emotional reactions. With regard to the consequences of outward emotional reactions, negative and positive outward emotional reactions could not predict the outcome of the next point. To conclude, this study highlights the behavioral component of emotions as a viable alternative to enhance our understanding of the role of emotions in sport.

스포츠 중계 시청률 결정요인에 관한 연구 : 2018 테니스 그랜드슬램 시청률과 내셔널리즘

The purpose of this study is to verify empirically the effects of sports nationalism and sports broadcasting on the change of viewership. To this end, we collected and analyzed the sports broadcasting ratings of four international tennis competitions (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open) held in 2018. Of the aggregate data of viewership of JTBC sports channel, which has the exclusive broadcasting rights of Australian open relay in 2018, specifically, we used the average viewership rate per day and the audience sports broadcasting ratings per game.BR As a result of the study, the average sports broadcasting ratings on the day when Jung Hyun participated in the tournament showed a significantly higher value than the upward trend during the period leading to the finals of the tournament. In addition, during the year 2018, the order of each round of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments was set as an independent variable, and the sports broadcasting ratings was set as a dependent variable. As a result of the regression analysis, the regression coefficient was the largest at the Australian Open competition where domestic athletes participated and had excellent grades. Therefore, in this study, it is shown that nationalism has the strongest influence on the change of viewership in the content that is relayed in the domestic sports channel rather than the content of sports in the sports game.

Srdeční frekvence sportovců s mentálním postižením během zápasů národního turnaje ve stolním tenise Českého hnutí speciálních olympiád: pilotní studie

Heart rate values are considered to be a significant indicator of individual fitness, intensity of exerciseand sympathetic activation. There are few studies in Czech literature focused on the heart rate in athleteswith intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of heart rateduring fifteen table tennis matches within the 23rd national tournament of the Czech Special OlympicsMovement. Ten participants (6 males, 4 females) who for at least 3 years train regularly and participatein table tennis competitions under the Special Olympics rules, were observed. Their heart rate wasmeasured using a sports tester Forerunner® 15, Garmin Ltd, which was fastened on the participant’schest during their game day. Heart rate values during the matches were statistically processed alongwith the matches’ duration and the resulting match scores. Correlation coefficients obtained from scatterplots show a statistically significant relationship of mean heart rate values during the match withthe resulting score, probably influenced by emotion and psychological stress associated with the matchloss. The effect of match duration on the heart rate was not statistically significant during observedmatches. Subsequent analysis of the body composition of the athletes showed that sixty percent ofthem were in the category of overweight or obesity. These results highlight the need to promote healthylifestyle and physical activity in the population with intellectual disabilities.

Salivary steroid hormone responses to dyadic table tennis competitions among Hong Kongese juvenile boys.

Little is known about salivary steroid hormone responses to dyadic competition among prepubescent boys. The current study explored pre-match and post-match testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), androstenedione, and cortisol among 22 ethnically Chinese, Hong Kongese table tennis athletes, aged 8-11 years, during dyadic competition against peers. These data provide novel comparative insight into boys' hormone responses when participating in similar forms of competition to that of adults. Measures of salivary steroid hormones, age, outcome, and participant's self-reported perceived performance were obtained. Pre-match salivary steroid hormones and competition-induced steroid hormone changes were explored to further assess overall hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Cortisol decreased for most participants, whereas testosterone measures were below the sensitivity of the assay. DHEA and androstenedione did not significantly change during the table tennis exhibitions and were unrelated to independent performance variables. Correlational analyses indicated that competition-induced androstenedione and cortisol change were positively related. Findings show that juvenile boys' steroid hormone responses during dyadic athletic competition differ in comparison to adult males, in whom cortisol and testosterone tend to rise. Lack of significant DHEA and androstenedione change during the table tennis competition differs from our previous work that showed DHEA and androstenedione were sensitive to more physically taxing forms of athletic competition (eg, soccer). These results are discussed in light of potential factors that may have contributed to these differences.

Image Judgment Auxiliary System for Table Tennis Umpiring under Low Light Conditions

ABSTRACTIn table tennis competitions, the rule violation judgment with the greatest controversy is the height of the ball serve. This is because inaccuracy in the ball height judgment, which results in erroneous judgment, is unavoidable. Thus, we designed an automatic image judgment auxiliary system for table tennis ball height during service in this study. We used a high-speed camera to record the ball toss in the table tennis service. The designed algorithm architecture can automatically search for the ball and the position of the hand action under low light source conditions. It is often difficult to provide enough light when using high-speed photography and this leads to underexposure. The algorithm is mainly divided into hue-saturation-value color space processing and morphology processing using Hough transform to search for the circular ball. Experiment result shows that color segmentation can successfully and accurately determine the ball position under low light conditions. The morphology method can find the position of the hand and help determine the moment when the ball leaves the hand during the service ball toss. Finally, the actual size of the target is used to estimate the actual distance unit represented by the image pixel.

EFFECTS OF TECHNICAL AND TACTICAL CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE TABLE TENNIS PLAYERS

The aim of the research was to determine the effects of applied technical and tactical characteristics of table tennis players on their success in competitions. The representative sample consisted of 48 top senior table tennis players from Bosnia and Herzegovina, age 18 and 36, selected on the basis of a qualification tournament. The measuring instruments for this study included eight assessment tests for the table tennis players' technical and tactical characteristics and one test for assessing success in table tennis competitions. Technical and tactical characteristics of the participants were evaluated by five experts who analyzed the efficacy of technical and tactical characteristics of the players on a scale ranging from 1 to 5. The methods of processing the results included descriptive statistical procedures, the multiple correlation coefficient, the determinant coefficient and a multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that technical and tactical characteristics have a major impact on the player's performance and are essential for table tennis success. Based on the value of the regression coefficients and their significance, it may be concluded that the 5 variables statistically significantly contribute to the regression model are: the efficiency of the serve; the efficiency of preventing the attack of the opponent and preparation of the players’ own attack; confidence when attacking across the table; the efficiency in the active defence and the efficiency of movement during the game. In the hierarchy of significance, the most important variables are the serve efficiency and efficiency of preventing the attack of an opponent and preparation of the player's own attack. The efficiency of the serve allows an attacker to realize technical and tactical ideas and usually gain initiative in the game. By returning a serve we can prevent or at least make it harder for the opponent to attack again. A serve return can also allow us to take the initiative

Application of table-top exercise in evaluating rescue ability of nursing staff in different stages of coping with public health emergency

Objective To analyze the situation of table tennis competitions in emergency public health events, find the possible weak links in the emergency rescue and care work, put forward the hospital in response to emergency public health emergency preparedness plan, health emergency drills and emergency rescue personnel training and so on targeted reference views. Methods A total of four public health emergencies such as traffic accident, mass food poisoning, fire and bird flu were selected as the theme of the competition to simulate the emergency rescue process after the emergency,the examination of each team is divided into pre-hospital disposal and hospital disposal links. Results The score of Crash in Batches was 225.13 ± 8.38, followed by Fire accident 222.78 ± 16.57, Avian Influenza 210.32 ± 11.19, Group Food poisoning 204.80± 6.77, the difference was statistically significant (F=8.706, P=0.000). The scores of pre-hospital treatment in all four subjects were109.04±4.80, 108.62±10.12, 98.24±6.95, 101.14±8.85, lower than those in hospital, which were 116.09±4.79, 114.16±7.61, 106.56±5.31, 109.18±4.24, the difference was statistically significant (t=-6.130--2.338, P<0.01 or 0.05). Conclusions On the different topics exposed in the desktop exercise competition and the differences between the pre-hospital treatment and the hospital disposal, the nursing managers should strengthen the training and practice of public health emergencies with different themes, and pay attention to the pre-hospital emergency public health emergencies training and rehearsal,the emergency response plans for public health emergencies were revised and improved through the health emergency drills. Key words: Public health emergency; Table-top exercise; Rescue ability

Competition Field Perceptions of Table-tennis Athletes and their Performance.

The distinction between positive and negative perceptions is fundamental in perception models. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between field perceptions of table tennis players and the outcome (net result) during the matches in a competition. Experimental data were collected from 10 elite table tennis players and analysed. The results addressed the following three competition field perceptions: (1) before the service, the player’s positive perceptions had significant effect on the positive outcome (winning rate) of that service; (2) the perception after the net result of the previous service increased the positive outcome of the next service, and (3) the player’s positive/negative perception during the matches affected the win/loss outcome of that competition. In conclusion, the player’s positive perceptions enhanced their winning rate during table tennis competitions. Therefore, during the training program, coaches need to develop positive perceptions and strengthen the psychological quality of table tennis players.

Competitive balance trends in elite table tennis: the Olympic Games and World Championships 1988-2016

ABSTRACTCompetitive balance is important because it enhances outcome uncertainty and therefore it promotes spectator interest, and encourages government investment in a sport. This article analyses the distribution of gold medals, medals, medal points and top eight points amongst nations in table tennis from 1988 to 2016 at the Olympic Games and the World Championships respectively. A normalised version of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and a coefficient of variation are calculated for each nation’s share of these performance indicators. The key findings are that China dominates both events, with successful female players being more dominant than their male counterparts. The competitive balance for gold medals has declined, whilst there is a trend towards improved competitive balance for top eight points for women, suggesting that more teams are featuring in the top eight (but not necessarily the top three) placings. This research has implications for the development of table tennis competitions. Compared to other racket sports, the issue of competitive imbalance in table tennis is particularly thorny, which threatens the long-term development of this sport. Accordingly, some measures are recommended for the International Olympic Committee and the International Table Tennis Federation to propel a more balanced development of international table tennis.

ITTVis: Interactive Visualization of Table Tennis Data.

The rapid development of information technology paved the way for the recording of fine-grained data, such as stroke techniques and stroke placements, during a table tennis match. This data recording creates opportunities to analyze and evaluate matches from new perspectives. Nevertheless, the increasingly complex data poses a significant challenge to make sense of and gain insights into. Analysts usually employ tedious and cumbersome methods which are limited to watching videos and reading statistical tables. However, existing sports visualization methods cannot be applied to visualizing table tennis competitions due to different competition rules and particular data attributes. In this work, we collaborate with data analysts to understand and characterize the sophisticated domain problem of analysis of table tennis data. We propose iTTVis, a novel interactive table tennis visualization system, which to our knowledge, is the first visual analysis system for analyzing and exploring table tennis data. iTTVis provides a holistic visualization of an entire match from three main perspectives, namely, time-oriented, statistical, and tactical analyses. The proposed system with several well-coordinated views not only supports correlation identification through statistics and pattern detection of tactics with a score timeline but also allows cross analysis to gain insights. Data analysts have obtained several new insights by using iTTVis. The effectiveness and usability of the proposed system are demonstrated with four case studies.

Cycles in Team Tennis and Other Paired-Element Contests

Team Tennis competitions produce aggregate scores for teams, and thus team rankings, based on head-to-head matchups of individual team members. Similar scoring rules can be used to rank any two groups that must be compared on the basis of paired elements. We explore such rules in terms of their strategic and social choice characteristics, with particular emphasis on the role of cycles. We first show that cycles play an important role in promoting competitive balance, and show that cycles allow for a maximum range of competitive balance within a league of competing teams. We also illustrate the impact that strategic behavior can have on the unpredictability of competition outcomes, and show for a general class of team tennis scoring rules that a rule is strategy-proof if and only if it is acyclic (dictatorial) and manipulable otherwise. Given the benefits of cycles and their relationship with manipulability, a league valuing competitive balance may invite such social choice violations when choosing a scoring rule.

Spring is coming: WTA and tennis in China

PurposeWith the rapid economic development, China has been increasingly paying special attention to its sports and health industries. In October 2014, the State Council raised the goal to upscale the sports industry to the net worth of 5 trillion yuan by 2025. To gain further insights into the current development of tennis in China, especially the development of Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tennis competitions, an interview with the director of Wuhan Opening Fabrice Chouquet and Mr Guoqing Yi of Wuahan Sport Investment Inc. was conducted. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachTo gain further insights into the current development of tennis in China, especially the development of WTA tennis competitions, an interview with the director of Wuhan Opening Fabrice Chouquet and Mr Guoqing Yi of Wuahan Sport Investment Inc. was conducted.FindingsThe interview comprised a series of topics including motivators of tennis industries in China, the strategic position of China for WTA development, WTA choice of hosting city, effects of WTA competition events toward the hosting city, and the operation of WTA tennis competitions. Integrating the aforementioned topics with Wuhan Tennis Open, the interviewees also provided suggestions toward the future development of tennis industry in China.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has several limitations that are of concern to researchers in the future. First, the interviewees of this research came from Wuhan Tennis Open. Though Mr Fabrice used to be the managing director of WTA in Asia, he only knows about women tennis in China, and his viewpoints have their own limitation. Therefore, the interviewee in the future has to be the person who could hold the opinion on tennis development in China at the macro scale. Second, the questions in the interview have a wide scale, but lack depth and penetration. For instance, the interview only relates to the motive of tennis development but does not go deeply into the relation between the above two aspects. Moreover, it mentions the problems related to the tennis development. It only concentrates on the tennis tournaments but does not discuss the tennis culture and the industry. These questions need to be considered when the authors research on the development of tennis in China in the future.Originality/valueThrough the analysis on WTA and tennis in China, the authors can understand the development of sports in China and the Chinese sports industry in recent years.