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The method of pairwise comparisons is frequently applied for ranking purposes. This article aims to rank top women tennis players based on their win/lose ratios. Incomplete pairwise comparison matrices (PCMs) were constructed from data obtained from the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) homepage. The database contains head-to-head results from the period between 1973 and 2022 for 28 players who had the position No. 1 in the official rankings of WTA. The weight vector was calculated from the incomplete PCM with the logarithmic least squares method and the eigenvector method. The results are not surprising: Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, and Martina Navratilova stand in the first three positions, and Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters, and Justine Henin follow them. We also tested the frequently used probability-based Bradley-Terry method and found high rank-correlation values. Using graph representations, the results gave us a deeper insight into the properties of incomplete PCMs. Special attention was given to the nontransitive triads. A data modification was necessary to remove ties in order to apply the commonly used tests. The results indicate that ordinally nontransitive triads are not significant in the data we analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper presents the macroeconomic indicators that most determine the success of women’s professional tennis players, expressed in terms of WTA ranking points and total money won in tournaments. Using data from 38 OECD countries, we perform a panel regression analysis to determine the extent to which macroeconomic factors contribute to players’ success. Our results show that the explanatory power of some macroeconomic factors has declined to insignificant levels over the last 20 years, but that players’ success is to some extent dependent on macroeconomic factors describing the welfare of their country of origin. It can be concluded that players from less prosperous countries are likely to perform better than their counterparts from more affluent regions. Although a certain level of economic well-being is essential for success, social well-being also plays a crucial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We identify gender differences in reaction to past performance in tennis. • Competition and profit opportunities are very similar for both genders in professional tennis. • We rely on exogenous shocks affecting past performance to identify a causal effect. • We estimate sizeable negative momentum affect for women, but not men. • Effect is driven by: absolute ability, experience, and intermediate scores. We use high-volume data from professional tennis to estimate the causal effect of past on current performance for women and men. To identify this effect, we exploit double faults as exogenous shocks to past performance. We estimate that men do not react to near setbacks in the past. In contrast, women perform considerably worse after near setbacks. Heterogeneity analysis reveals different effects depending on experience, ability, and the intermediate score. Our results are robust to a number of sensitivity checks. A potential explanation for our findings are gender differences in negative psychological momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. International scientific papers have often analyzed the nutrition imbalances in tennis players. The study of sports nutrition has advanced significantly in recent years thanks to numerous innovations. Despite the fact that research on sports nutrition has evolved, the majority of new studies are still conducted on team sports. Aims. The aim of this study was to analyze the eating patterns on a group of athletes and compare their dietary consumption to data from specialized literature. Methods. An observational study was conducted over 4 months. Food ingestion was calculated using the USDA Nutritional values and all the tennis players had to go through anthropometric measurements and had to provide a food journal for 3 consecutive days. Results. The reported ingestion of the tennis players was extremely low compared to the nutritional needs of professional tennis players. Conclusions. Athletes are facing a very high risk of injuries and are minimizing their competitive level because of inappropriate fuelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the flat serve (FS) minimizes the ball spin and kick serve (KS) combined topspin and sidespin, this systematic review aimed to explore the ball impact location (BI) within the FS and KS at the professional men, junior men, and women tennis players. The PRISMA guideline was used, and the original articles were searched in Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed. The means and standard deviations computed from the distance of BI from the origin within the FS and KS on the x, y, and z axes (global coordinate system) were normalized by the participants' height and weighted by the number of participants in one-way ANOVA. Ten articles with a pooled sample of 133 males and 51 females aged 11–25 were included. The professional men had more stable BI on the x-axis within the FS by 56% (p < 0.001), within the KS by 58% (p < 0.001), and on the y-axis within the KS by 90% (p < 0.001) than junior men. The professional and junior men had the BI more leftwards from the origin on the x-axis within the KS by 188% (p < 0.001) and 88% (p < 0.001), respectively than within the FS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kobieta i Biznes is the property of Warsaw School of Economics, World Economy Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Retos: Nuevas Perspectivas de Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación is the property of Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educacion Fisica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In March 2016 the highest-paid women's athlete, Maria Sharapova, called a press conference to announce a failed drug test. Sharapova relied on the crisis communication strategy of stealing thunder to present the information to media and break the story. The authors analyze how the press conference and her strategy were portrayed in traditional and online media and how Sharapova promoted and broadcast the press conference to defend herself. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software and textual analysis, the authors argue that Sharapova's use of the stealing-thunder strategy successfully influenced media narratives about her suspension and should be considered by athletes in crisis situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the changes in shot characteristics of elite women table tennis players through the longitudinal analysis of women's singles finals and semifinals from 2004 to 2021 Olympic Games. A total of 13 games were selected, and the stroke position, stroke type, ball placement, and stroke efficacy of 5,877 shots were analyzed using the notational analysis method. A chi-square test was used to test whether the shot characteristics had changed between game years, and the adjusted residual was calculated to judge these changes. In the four dimensions, namely, stroke position, stroke type, ball placement, and stroke efficacy, the shot characteristics of women table tennis players have changed with the year of the Olympic Games. The backhand stroke position has an upward trend from 55.0 to 58.1%, and the type of flip stroke has a downward trend from 7.6 to 2.1%. The ball placements of forehand and middle long have two fluctuations first rising from 11.2 to 12.7% and 20.3 to 23.7% and then falling from 12.7 to 5.3% and 23.7 to 16.0%. Moreover, backhand long is being increasingly used. In the year of equipment change, the proportion of neutral stroke increases from 40.0 to 61.5%. Once the players have become adapted to the equipment, the proportion of neutral stroke decreases from 61.5 to 48.5%. The development trend of women table tennis players is that the extreme stroke will be further increasingly used. Results suggest that elite women table tennis coaches and players should focus on the technical training in the forehand and backhand positions, strengthen the practice of topspin and block, and pay attention to the backhand long landing area. Women's table tennis coaches and players also need to pay close attention to the possible impact of changes in rules and equipment and carry out targeted training in advance to minimize the impact on the stroke efficacy of players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this comparative study was to investigate and compare the academic policies of the Korean University Sport Federation (KUSF) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A qualitative, multiple case study design was utilized for this study. Specifically, in-depth interviews were completed with current South Korean (N = 3) and US (N = 3) college women's tennis players to understand their experiences and perceptions linked to the KUSF's and NCAA's academic policies. A total of three distinct themes emerged with US student-athletes: (a) academic advisor involvement, (b) academic regulations, and (c) study hall. One theme emerged with South Korean student-athletes: absence of academic support. The results of this study provide practical insights to administrators of South Korean intercollegiate athletics regarding their academic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to analyze the European Cup "Top 16" - women: competitive workload; participants and effectiveness of serve and receive. The minimum time for training on the pre-competition day is 2 hours. Approximately this is the possible competitive load per day (2 matches up to 50-60 minutes). The warm-up time before a match is equal to the approximate set time for one match (50 min) by program. One part of the participants (25%) play 4 matches, 50% of them compete in 1 match, and the remaining 25% in 2 matches. There are 16 athletes from 13 countries take part in 16 matches. The total played points is 1621: only 49% are won after own service, the other 51% are won after opponent service. The half of the players (50%) are playing with the left hand and 88% of them are attack style of play, only 2 participants are defensive. There is a PTT player, class 10. Fifty percent of the competitors are between 25-30 years old, and the oldest participant is 57 years old. Half of the competitors (50%) who drop out in the first round have the lowest ITTF ranking - after the first 60. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International sports are dominated by Western nations for many decades. The popularity of tennis has risen from the aristocratic entertainment of the elite upper class to the sport of the middle class. Tennis is one of the most successful women's sports worldwide, the female tennis players among the highest paid athletes. Players from the former socialist countries are taking on an increasing role inglobal tennis, which has developed into a professional sport. The article describes the causes of the phenomenon focusing on the already retired and still active elit hungarian women tennis players. The research was carried out among retired and active Hungarian elite tennis players. Data was collected with the help of questionnaries. Statistical analysis confirms that the success of tennis players' sports performance and sports culture is influenced by different factors. The main contribution of our paper is that a tennis career already functions as a livelihood model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tennis has been identified as an ideal context for examining the dynamics of parenting and coaching relationships (Gould et al., 2008) but coaching dual-role relationships remain unexplored in this sport and related investigations only included volunteer coaches (Jowett, 2008; Harwood & Knight, 2012). An open-ended interview approach was used to examine how female tennis players previously coached by their fathers (professional coaches) before competing in college tennis perceived their experiences with the dual-role relationship and the coaching transition. A holistic narrative approach was used to reconstruct retrospectively the stories of the participants' experiences and understand their development. Despite some beneficial aspects, a majority of participants emphasized their challenging experiences with regards to their needs to manage blurred boundaries, receive paternal approval, and endure their fathers' controlling and abusive behaviors. Coaching transitions helped normalize father-daughter relationships and provided insight into the respective needs that were fulfilled through the dual-role relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RICYDE. Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte is the property of Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, the author analyses the main inefficiencies of the Italian Serie-A betting market: in particular, using previous findings on the favourite-long shot bias, the team scoring home advantage and the league winner scoring advantage, a strategy aimed to outperform the market will be presented. By testing the betting scheme over the past 19 seasons, it was possible to obtain an average return per bet of 9.31%, with 16 of the 19 years resulting in positive financial returns. In order to verify the computations, different betting odds databases were used. The results obtained are particularly significant for two reasons: firstly all computations were performed on market average coefficients, leaving on the table an additional 3-4% of profit, which could be obtained by using best coefficients among bookmakers and secondly compared to market benchmarks and other betting strategies, the net profit is considerably higher. In particular other three strategies were used as a benchmark: the first one uses the favourite-long shot bias, the second one the Home factor and the third one the league favourite team advantage. All these betting schemes performed more poorly, with the second best strategy scoring on average 6% worse. After analysing possible future improvements, in the final section the author describes how the findings of this paper may be applied to other betting markets, such as different football leagues, basketball, hockey and tennis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment of international-student athletes (ISAs) to NCAA schools in the United States has been a feature of intercollegiate athletics since the late 1940's and an influx of foreign-born athletes became evident from the late 1960s and through the 1970s. More recently, the number of ISAs increased drastically from the 1990s to the 2000s and this growth trend has continued. Similar to previous research on migration patterns of ISAs in NCAA basketball and soccer, the purpose of this study was to explore talent migration in NCAA Division I (DI) tennis. The authors incorporate discussions on globalization and world-system theory to explicate global sport labor migration and analyze descriptive player and coach data to understand: (1) the extent of ISAs competing in NCAA DI tennis in comparison to other sports; (2) distribution of tennis ISAs across three DI categories and thirty-one conferences; (3) migration patterns of DI tennis ISAs with respect to country and city of origin; and, (4) the percentage of international tennis coaches in DI. Findings indicate tennis has the highest percentage of ISAs among all NCAA sports, ISAs make up the majority of all men's and women's tennis players at the DI level, Spain is the top donor nation, and the percentage of international coaches for DI teams is approximately 30%. The authors conclude the paper with commentary informed by veteran DI tennis coaches regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of college tennis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Founded in 1877 as an offshoot of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, the Staten Island Ladies' Club was one of the largest women's sporting organizations in Gilded Age America and the first to embrace lawn tennis. This case study of the ladies' club from its establishment until the early 1920s argues that the material culture of lawn tennis empowered white upper-class women in measurable ways. Clubhouse architecture, female sportswear, and tennis racquets increased their freedom of movement, eroded social barriers to their use of public and semiprivate space, and created opportunities for mixed-gender socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how agents adapt their behaviour to variations of incentives in dynamic contests. We investigate a real dynamic contest with large stakes: professional tennis matches. Situations in which balls bounce very close to the court's lines are used as the setting of a quasi-experiment providing random variations in winning probability. We find evidence of a momentum effect for men whereby winning a point has a positive causal impact on the probability to win the next one. This behaviour is compatible with a reaction to the asymmetry of incentives between leaders and followers. We do not find momentum for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]