Game Activity and Physiological Responses of Young Tennis Players in a Competition With Two Consecutive Matches in a Day.

PURPOSE

This study aimed to determine whether the game activity and physiological responses of young tennis players differed depending on the session of play (e.g., morning (MOR) vs. afternoon (AFT)) and the final match outcome (e.g., winners vs. losers), during a simulated competition with two matches on the same day.

METHODS

Twelve well-trained male tennis players (14.5±0.8 years) took part in a simulated competition of two 3-set matches separated by 3 h. All the matches were video-recorded and the participants were monitored using 10 Hz global positioning (GPS) units including a heart-rate (HR) monitor. Effect size (ES) statistics were used to investigate the magnitudes of the differences.

RESULTS

During the AFT matches, in absolute terms, players covered longer total distance (ES=moderate), ran more distance between 0 and ≤ 4m·s (ES=small-to-large) compared to MOR matches. Total duration was also longer (ES=large) in the AFT, where the rest time between rallies was also longer (ES=very large). HR was similar during both AFT and MOR matches, but higher rates of perceived exertion (RPE) (ES=moderate) were reported in the AFT. Only peak running velocity was observed to be likely higher for losers compared to winners (ES=small).

CONCLUSIONS

Game activity and physiological responses of young tennis players differ when two consecutive matches are played on the same day. These data might help to elucidate the need for specific pre-competition training loads and/or in-between match/session recovery strategies when facing overloaded competitions.