Just How Tough is Tennis?

Strenua — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 01:13:22 +0000

2008 US Open Final - Andy Murray and Roger Federer

Following the epic match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at the beginning of Wimbledon 2010, Andy Murray tweeted ‘This is why tennis is one of the toughest sports in the world, this will never ever be matched again’.

After watching some of the world’s elite footballers play so disappointingly during the World Cup, supposedly their sports most prestigious competition, Murray’s point is justified. Football is a team competition; players can be rested during matches, be substituted when injured and even miss matches by suspensions. Even the winning team will have only played 7 matches of 90mins (with possible extra time of 30minutes) over a period of 4 weeks.

In comparison Isner and Mahut’s single match took a record breaking 11 hours and five minutes, with the final fifth set alone taking eight-hours 11-minutes. In total 980 points including 215 aces were played over 183 games, the final score at 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(9–7), 7–6(7–3), 70–68. However, when you see slightly overweight, middle aged people inspired by Wimbledon fortnight, playing tennis on your local courts tennis doesn’t seem so demanding.

So why should tennis be considered a tough sport?

Whilst a knock about on the beach or the local park does not seem that strenuous, professional competitive tennis requires a combination of physiological and unpredictable variables. Each match depends on adapting to a number of factors:

Match duration (3 or 5 sets)
Weather
Opponent
Surface
Level of play

But within each match or indeed between each point there are also a number of variables that need to be considered:

The length of the point
Playing style of both players
Velocity of shot
Shot selections

Tennis players need to train specifically for their sport and playing style. During high level matches points have an average length of between 3 seconds to around 15 seconds on some of the faster surfaces such as grass and indoor. However the total playing time is only between 20-30% of the total match time and varies considerably between when the player in control of a rally is an attacking player who hits the net hard then consistently comes to the net, a whole court player, or a baseline player.

Is Tennis an Aerobic or Anaerobic Sport?

Tennis requires short explosive bursts of energy repeated hundreds of times per match which as we have seen can be of a long duration. This requires players to be trained anaerobically for performance and aerobically to aid recovery during and after play.

Maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂max) is used as a marker of aerobic capacity. Generally VO₂max and heart rate increases as the game progresses, decreasing during rest periods and end changes. VO₂max in competitive high level tennis players has been reported to be greater than 50ml/kg/min classifying tennis players as highly aerobically trained with aggressive attacking players having a lower VO₂max than baseline players.

The mean heart rate in trained players aged 20–30 years has reported to be between the ranges of 140–160 beats/min during singles matches. The long duration and moderate mean heart rate during a match suggests that tennis an aerobic sport.

However the explosive nature of the serve and ground strokes, along with rapid changes of direction requires a tennis player to have a high anaerobic capacity. Together with the need for a high percentage of fast twitch muscles tennis could be considered more as a predominantly anaerobic activity, needing high levels of aerobic condition to avoid fatigue and aid recovery between points.

Strength, Speed and Agility

In addition to stamina tennis players need fast reaction times to respond to every shot from the opponent. They are required to move not only forwards and backwards but also sideway and diagonally, so need to be agile, able to accelerate and move at a maximum speed.

Strength training is also important not only in muscles and joints for performance but also to reduce injuries. As well as the expected required strength in the shoulder and upper arm, tennis players require a firm wrist to direct the racket head under high speeds. Players also require a deal of flexibility, not only through reaching for or playing a racket shot but also when throwing the ball when serving.

There is no doubt that training as a competitive tennis player is demanding. You need to be both anaerobic and aerobically fit, have stamina, strength, speed, flexibility and agility, as well as being mentally aware to respond to your opponent’s shots. There are however other professional sports which could arguably also be considered some of the toughest in the world.

Triathletes competing at Ironman distances for example, may argue that a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike and a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km) run, raced in that order and without a break, is also quite tough. As might the cyclists competing in the Tour de France covering around 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi) through 21 stages over 3 weeks. But considering it took Rafael Nadal 17 and half playing hours, over the course of two week tournament to win 2010 Wimbledon championship I will concede to Andy Murray that professional competitive ‘tennis is one of the toughest sports in the world.’

Have players at Wimbledon learnt to exploit the bias of line calls?

Strenua — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:40:35 +0000

Will Wimbledon 2009 be a repeat of last years US Open final with Murray and Federer?

It’s Wimbledon fortnight, the unofficial start of the UK summer. There is real hope this year that through Andy Murray, the world number 3, the UK may get a home Wimbledon champion, the first since Fred Perry in 1936. Unfortunately for tennis fans reigning champion and world number one Rafael Nadal had to withdraw last week with a knee injury. With Nadal unable to defend his crown this year it gives the opportunity for Roger Federer to once again be the world number one. Fans will be looking forward to a final featuring both Murray and Federer and with so much for both men to play for, hopefully a final less one sided than the US open final last year that Federer dominated to win.

Professional tennis has recently begun to allow players to challenge the umpire’s calls by utilising a computer system called Hawk-eye. Hawk-eye visually tracks the path of the ball and displays a record of its actual path as a graphic image. The US Open in 2006 was the first Grand Slam tournament to use Hawk-eye allowing players to challenge line calls. As long as the player continues to challenge incorrect umpire calls, the player is allowed to continue making challenges.

Research recently published in the journal Current Biology, investigated how the position the moving tennis ball is perceived to have bounced depends on the direction the ball is travelling in. A perceptual error is often made by professional tennis umpires, which players could exploit to their advantage, with successful challenges having significant effects on the outcome of matches.

There are commonly two types of errors made by tennis umpires:

‘Predicted errors’ are those in which the umpire judges incorrectly that the ball’s bounce position was further forward in the direction of the balls travel. These errors are commonly when a ball bounces on the line and so in play, yet is called out.
‘Unpredicted errors’ are those incorrect judgements that the tennis ball moved in a direction opposite of the balls motion, these errors are often when a ball bouncing out of play is called in.

To measure whether umpires accurately perceive the position at which a tennis ball bounces, the researchers from the University of California randomly reviewed 4457 points from random 57 matches played during Wimbledon 2007. They reviewed and recorded each case in which a tennis ball landed close to or on a line. Of 83 erroneous calls 70 were classified as predicted errors by the researchers and only 13 were unpredicted. Of 85 players challenges that were called 25 calls were overturned, a umpire error rate of around 30%. The researchers also looked at Wimbledon 2008 matches and found that of all the players’ challenges that got over turned, 69% were predicted errors.

Whilst players are likely to have the same misperception that the umpires have, they are likely to challenge too few predicted errors. The author Dr David Whitney, suggests that players should maximise their challenges because the referee error rate is high amongst close calls. But also players should predominantly challenge calls consistent with perceptual error for example they should concentrate their challenges on balls that are called ‘out’.

The skill of challenging umpire’s calls is now an essential part of the professional tennis game. It would be assumed that both umpires and players are aware of research such as this but it will be interesting to watch this year’s Wimbledon to see if umpires still have a bias towards predicted errors, or with all the pressures and emotion on court if players restrain themselves to only challenge calls of ‘out’.

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Just How Tough is Tennis?

Have players at Wimbledon learnt to exploit the bias of line calls?