Comparison of Match-Play Characteristics of Junior and Professional Tennis Players

Date

2023-10

Author

Ulusoy, İsmet Tarık

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

368
views

793
downloads

Cite This

The main purpose of this study was to compare the match-play characteristics of junior and professional tennis players on clay, grass, and hard courts. Surface-related variations according to competitive level and gender differences were also investigated. The match-play characteristics of players who competed and won the matches in the first-round singles main draws of the 2022 French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open Tournaments were obtained from the official web pages. A total of 576 matches (junior = 192, professional = 384) consisting of 288 males and 288 females were analyzed. The results of the study indicated that professional players demonstrated significantly higher average set duration and ace per set than juniors on each of the court surfaces. Junior boys had significantly higher return points won on grass and hard courts than professionals. Professional female players performed significantly higher first serve points won and total points won on grass court than junior girls. When the effect of surface was analyzed for each category, it was observed that in professional males, the variables of first serve points won, ace per set, and double faults per set were significantly higher on grass and hard courts, compared to clay court. Moreover, females performed significantly higher unforced errors per set than males on each of the courts. These findings may be a guideline for coaches and athletes to create better training programs and adapted match strategies in order to increase athletes’ performance.

Subject Keywords

Grand slams, Racket sports, Match-play outcomes, Court surface, Match analysis

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105622

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis