Comparison between young male and female tennis players in terms of distance covered

Resumen comparison between young male and female tennis players

Tennis game is dynamic and complex system where tactical and technical skills are very important. Those two parameters are crucial for qualitative solving and decision making in various playing situation in tennis game. We can observe different types of movement and very often fast changes of directions. Due to the complexity and dynamics of tennis game little research was done in the field of extent, area, way and speed of movement. This was usually due to inaccessibility of technology that would enable that kind of analyses. Recently Suda, Michikami, Sato & Umebayashi (2003) analysed ladies’s single that was recorded with video camera. In the match that was 82 minutes long one of the player covered 6932 meter. In addition, Hughes (1998) and O’Donoghue (2004) gave review of research done in this field. It is seen, researcher were more focused on technical parametres as compared to movement characteristics in tennis. On the other hand, similar research was presented in squash (Vu?kovi? et al., 2004). New technologies enable new approaches to the study of sport. These include computer-vision-based on human movement analysis. Tracking system so-called SAGIT/TENNIS enables analises of tennis player movement in the time of his activity. Analises of human movement presents new challenges to the researches. Namely, results of tracking gave us information in such a form that allows further processing with different algorithms (Perš, Vu?kovi?, Kova?i? & Dežman, 2001).

Introduction

Tennis game is dynamic and complex system where tactical and technical skills are very important. Those two parameters are crucial for qualitative solving and decision making in various playing situation in tennis game. We can observe different types of movement and very often fast changes of directions. Due to the complexity and dynamics of tennis game little research was done in the field of extent, area, way and speed of movement. This was usually due to inaccessibility of technology that would enable that kind of analyses. Recently Suda, Michikami, Sato & Umebayashi (2003) analysed ladies’s single that was recorded with video camera. In the match that was 82 minutes long one of the player covered 6932 meter. In addition, Hughes (1998) and O’Donoghue (2004) gave review of research done in this field. It is seen, researcher were more focused on technical parametres as compared to movement characteristics in tennis. On the other hand, similar research was presented in squash (Vu?kovi? et al., 2004). New technologies enable new approaches to the study of sport. These include computer-vision-based on human movement analysis. Tracking system so-called SAGIT/TENNIS enables analises of tennis player movement in the time of his activity. Analises of human movement presents new challenges to the researches. Namely, results of tracking gave us information in such a form that allows further processing with different algorithms (Perš, Vu?kovi?, Kova?i? & Dežman, 2001).

The aim of the study

The aim of the study was to analyse the movement of young male and female tennis players in a singles match. The computer-vision software application was used to automatically obtain players’ motion data from the digitilised video recordings of a tennis match. To collect the video recordings we used 2 PAL colour SVHS cameras which were fixed to a construction above the indoor tennis court. One video camera covered one-half of the tennis court. The video signal was recorded on S-VHS video tape on an external recorder and the recordings were digitised and calibrated. The recordings were subsequently processed using the SAGIT/TENNIS tracking system which is based on the computer-vision technology (Perš, 2001).

Methods

The sample of players included 12 boys and 12 girls who played in the national championships in the U14 category. 12 tennis matches were observed. We present the results of total running distance that was coverd by winners and losers in tennis matches. All matched were finished in two sets. The differences between both groups of players (boys and girls; winning and losing players) in the selected set of variables were determined using T-test.

Results

Table 1: Results of descriptive statistics for distance covered by boys and girls.

Table 2: Results of ddescriptive statistics for distance covered by losers and winners.

Table 3: Results of T-test for distance covered by boys – girls and losers – winners.

Discussion

Application and analysis of movement in tennis game is possible with tracking system SAGIT/TENNIS. The analysis and comparison of total distance covered by tennis players showed no statistically significant differences were found among boys and girls in the national championships in the U14 category. In addition, the same was observed among losers and winners although just the opposite was expected. Reason for this can be found in small number of tennis matches that were analysed although results of mean among winners and losers show differences in total distance covered. Secondly, the fast playing surface (hard court) can be the answer. Namely, points played on the hard courts are usually shorter as compared to clay surface. Probably, there were few situations where one of the player controls the game from the base line, while the second stays in defensive position where longer distance was covered. This research is first attempt where usage of SAGIT/TENNIS system was used to analyse movement characteristics in tennis game. In the future the following characteristics will be notated with the system. – distance covered in passive/active part of the game – time characteristics (average duration of point, game, set, match) – path of movement – speed and acceleration of movement – position, direction and type of stroke.

Bibliografía

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• 3. Perš, J. (2001). Sledenje ljudi z metodami ra?unalniškega vida. Master thesis. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za elektrotehniko.
• 4. Perš, J. Vu?kovi?, G., Kova?i?, S. Dežman, B. (2001). A low-cost-real-time tracker of live sport events. In Proceedings of the 2nd Int. Symp. On Image and Signal Processing and Analysis in conjuction with 23rd Int. Conf. on Information Technology Interfaces (Ed Lon?ari?, S., Babi?, H), Pula, Croatia, pp. 362-365.
• 5. Suda K., Michikami, S., Sato, Y., Umebayashi, K. (2003). Automatic measurement of running distance during tennis matches using computer-based trace analysis. Applied sport science for high performance tennis, 151.
• 6. Vu?kovi?, G., Dežman, B., Er?ulj, F., Kova?i?, S. & Perš, J. (2004). Differences between the winning and the losing players in a squash game in terms of distance covered. In A. Lees, Kahn, J.F & Maynard, I. (Ed.), Science and Racket Sports III, Routledge, pp. 202-207.