Association between career achievements and demographic, anthropometric and lateral dominance characteristics of professional tennis players

• Autor(a) principal: da Silva, Marcelo Cozzensa
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: da Silva, Lucas Marques
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Caderno de Educação Física e Esporte
• Texto Completo: https://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/cadernoedfisica/article/view/26570
• topic: Tênis; Perfil de Saúde; Desempenho Atlético; Tennis; Health Profile; Athletic Performance

BACKGROUND: Tennis is one of the most competitive sports in which the difference between the top ranked players is the result of a combination of physical, technical, tactical and psychological components. OBJECTIVE: Identify the demographic, anthropometric and lateral dominance characteristics of professional tennis players and their association with the number of career achievements. METHODS: Analytical, cross-sectional study with the 100 best tennis players ranked in the Association of Professional Tennis Players in 2017. For the outcome, number of titles, all achievements during the tennis professional’s career were taken into account. A descriptive analysis of the variables under study was performed, with calculation of mean and respective standard deviation for continuous variables and calculation of proportion and confidence intervals for categorical variables. The bivariate analysis was performed using Student’s T test and Anova or its nonparametric equivalent. RESULTS: The average age of tennis players was 28.3±4.5 years old with the youngest 18 years old and the oldest 38 years old. The majority had white skin color (95.0%) and had, respectively, average weight and height of 80.1±8.0 kg and 1.87±0.07 meters. Regarding the game characteristics, 84.0% of the players had right dominance and 81.0% performed the backhand with two hands. As for the total titles, 37.0% had never won titles in the tournaments played. Tennis players up to 29 years of age had a lower average of titles compared to those of 30 years old or more (p=0.001). There was no difference in the number of victories between players with different lateral dominances (p=0.80) or backhand with one or two hands (p=0.1).  CONCLUSION: Older tennis players, who remain in the top 100, have the highest number of career achievements.