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Enhancing the durability of consumer products including clothes is a mainstay of environmental impact reduction strategies in Europe and North America (PLATE conference, 2021; Cooper, 2010) and typically includes a near total focus on these geographical contexts and durability knowledges. This project note reports the findings of the Decentring Durability research to examine non-western perspectives, ideas and practices of clothing durability that take place outside of the global north. Decentring Durability was conducted as part of the LASTING project and funded by the Norwegian Research Council. It was carried out by Kate Fletcher and Anna Fitzpatrick from the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK.

Modified versions of tennis, such as Tennis Play and Stay and Mini Tennis (MT) have been implemented around the world to influence children’s performance behaviours. However, it is not clear how modified versions of tennis shape match-play behaviours. We analysed 1010 match-play points, across four stages of tennis (MT Red, MT Orange, MT Green and Full Ball), to investigate effects of playing MT on children’s match-play performance behaviours (Fitzpatrick, Davids & Stone, 2017). MT Red and MT Orange rallies lasted longer than Full Ball rallies, indicating that MT can afford children more opportunities to develop their skills. Also, MT players performed a higher percentage of forehands and lower percentage of backhands than Full Ball players, which may signal an unintended, imbalanced effect of practice modifications on skill development. Findings suggested that coaches should consider possible effects on match-play behaviours when designing modified practice environments for young players.

Introduction: The benefits of manipulating task constraints (e.g. court dimensions and ball compression) in tennis for the purpose of enhancing young participants’ skill development have been well-documented (Buszard et al., 2016). Despite this, modified versions of the sport, such as the Lawn Tennis Association’s Mini Tennis Red, may not afford participants sufficient opportunities to perform and develop the backhand groundstroke (Fitzpatrick et al., 2016). The aim of this study was to afford backhand development during Mini Tennis Red coaching by introducing an 8-week intervention, during which constraints-based adaptations were applied to the experimental group’s learning environment aimed to develop backhand groundstrokes. Method: Two groups; control (n = 8, age = 7.2 ± 0.6 years, tennis playing experience = 1.9 ± 0.6 years) and experimental (n = 8, age 7.4 ± 0.4 years, tennis playing experience = 2.1 ± 0.6 years) underwent an 8-week coaching intervention, during which constraints-based adaptations (manipulating internal court dimensions, the location of participants’ recovery boxes and practice match-play rules) were applied to the experimental group’s learning environment. Pre- and post-test match-play characteristics (e.g. forehand and backhand percentages, winner and error percentages) and Tennis-Specific Skills Test results (e.g. forehand and backhand technical proficiency, rally performance with a coach) were analysed. Results: Following the intervention, both groups improved their ability to maintain a rally during match-play (Control: pre 4.5 ± 1.6, post 5.2 +1.9; Experimental: 5.3 ± 1.9, post 5.9 ± 1.2, p < 0.001). However, the experimental group performed a greater percentage of backhands out of total shots (46.7 ± 3.3%) and a greater percentage of backhand winners out of total backhands (5.5 ± 3.0%) than the control group during match-play (backhands = 22.4 ± 6.5%, p < 0.001; backhand winners = 1.0 ± 3.6%, p < 0.01). The experimental group also demonstrated superior improvements in backhand technical proficiency (experimental group, 4.0 points improvement; control 0.8 points improvement, p