Noorbergen, O.S. (Olaf) (2014) How do tennis players interact during a competitive rally? thesis, Human Movement Sciences.
Full text available on request.Abstract
Lateral movements of two tennis players in a rally could be seen as coupled oscillations, just as in other cyclical human movements. Previous research on interpersonal movement cooperation in experiments as well as in sport settings showed that agents mutually tune each others’ movements, leading to synchronization tendencies to in-phase and anti-phase coordination (which is a relative phase of 0 and 180 degrees respectively). However, studies that have examined interpersonal competition, in which two opponents aim to perturb each other’s movement oscillations, are scarce. The goal of this study was to trace the underlying interaction of laterally moving elite tennis players during long-stroke baseline rallies (≥ 10 strokes) in official tennis matches. 40 video’s of rallies of different matches (n=31) and rallies within one match (n=9) from the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) were randomly selected. The relative phase was calculated from the lateral positions of both players on the tennis field. In both analyses (i.e. rallies of different matches and within a match), relative phase values near to -90, 0, and 90 degrees were observed more often than other relations. Stable periods of zero degrees relative phase in a rally likely indicate that players were in a stable state (by both playing in a defensive mode) searching for possibilities to perturb the rally, while during periods of 90 degrees the perturbation was already made by one of the player, which led to a less stable state of organization to 90 degrees. Notably, no signs of attraction to anti-phase were observed. Furthermore, the results of the nine rallies within one match suggested that the player who led the rally (indicated by a phase lead of 90 degrees relative to the other player) had a higher chance to win the rally. Together, the findings of this study stood in contrast to conclusions from a previous comparable tennis experiment but were in line with predictions from a model of coupled oscillators with reverse coupling, that is, where there was a ‘conflict of intention’ in the interaction. These results may provide new insights into tennis behavior for athletes and coaches. Keywords: Elite athletes, competitive interaction, oscillatory movements, tennis tactics
| Item Type: | Thesis (UNSPECIFIED) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Poel, H.J. de |
| Faculty: | Medical Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Apr 2022 07:57 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Apr 2022 07:57 |
| URI: | https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3043 |
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