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Amateurism may be a widely discussed and recurring theme throughout the sports world, but the battle fought by the protagonists in the tennis field takes up a rather peculiar character at the end of the 1950s. Managers (acknowledged promoters or covetous businessmen), players, and spectators tear one another apart in the backstage. In such a muddle, the French camp seems to be in the forefront of the struggle to impose a new organization of international tennis. The positioning and acting of the leaders of the French Federation of Lawn- Tennis, sometimes anarchic and contradictory, deserve to be analyzed in the light of the inner squabbles marking tennis over the years 1950 through 1970. So much ground was covered with hesitations, oppositions, hidden interviews, and power grabs before the inauguration of the “tennis open era” in 1968 and the tenuous proximity between the amateur and professional players. Several actors, representing the great nations of tennis, proved to be very active, but the role played by Jean Borotra is to be particularly highlighted. An advocate of openness and more clarity for the players’ status, he managed to use his official functions as a leader within the International Federation of Lawn-Tennis to establish new international regulations, allowing more transparency in the players’ wages. At the same time, the operational and informal work carried out by Philippe Chatrier also demonstrates the determination of the French camp in favor of a reunited tennis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses three resources that library patrons can use for research on popular culture. The first resource is British Pathé, a company that holds a vast collection of short news clips and reels from the early twentieth century. It offers a search function and covers a range of topics, including fashion, sports, and politics. The second resource is Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library that provides access to scanned magazines, TV shows, books, movies, and more. It is recommended for in-depth cultural studies but caution is advised to be specific with search terms. The third resource is the Museum of Popular Culture in Seattle, which offers an online collection of artifacts and exhibitions related to popular culture. It also provides educational resources and lesson plans. These resources cater to diverse interests and can be valuable for research purposes. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses three resources that can be used for research on popular culture. British Pathé is a company that holds a vast collection of short news clips and reels from the early twentieth century, providing a wealth of source material. Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that offers access to scanned magazines, TV shows, books, movies, and more. The Museum of Popular Culture in Seattle has an online resource collection with exhibitions on various topics, accompanied by detailed notes. These resources can be valuable for students interested in exploring popular culture from diverse perspectives. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses three resources that can be used for teaching popular culture in history. British Pathé is a company that holds a vast collection of news clips and reels from the early twentieth century, providing a wealth of source material. Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that offers free access to scanned magazines, TV shows, books, movies, and more. The Museum of Popular Culture in Seattle has an online resource collection featuring exhibitions on various topics, accompanied by detailed notes. These resources can be valuable for conducting cultural studies and exploring diverse perspectives in history. [Extracted from the article]

Radio and video-based electronic performance and tracking systems (EPTS) for position detection are widely used in a variety of sports. In this paper, the authors introduce an innovative approach to video-based tracking that uses a single camera attached to a drone to capture an area of interest from a bird's eye view. This pilot validation study showcases several applications of this novel approach for the analysis of game and racket sports. To this end, the authors compared positional data retrieved from video footage recorded using a drone with positional data obtained from established radio-based systems in three different setups: a tennis match during training with the drone hovering at a height of 27 m, a small-sided soccer game with the drone at a height of 50 m, and an Ultimate Frisbee match with the drone at a height of 85 m. For each type of playing surface, clay (tennis) and grass (soccer and Ultimate), the drone-based system demonstrated acceptable static accuracy with root mean square errors of 0.02 m (clay) and 0.15 m (grass). The total distance measured using the drone-based system showed an absolute difference of 2.78% in Ultimate and 2.36% in soccer, when compared to an established GPS system and an absolute difference of 2.68% in tennis, when compared to a state-of-the-art LPS. The overall ICC value for consistency was 0.998. Further applications of a drone-based EPTS and the collected positional data in the context of performance analysis are discussed. Based on the findings of this pilot validation study, we conclude that drone-based position detection could serve as a promising alternative to existing EPTS but would benefit from further comparisons in dynamic settings and across different sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasting has been playing an important role in different fields of life, i.e., in decision-making activities of management, to predict uncertain events within an organization, in weather forecasting, in flood forecasting, etc. Stakeholders involved in betting market take advantage of tennis forecasting directly or indirectly. Winning probability calculated using forecasting models helps the bettors in deciding whether to place a bet or not. Keeping in view the importance of tennis forecasting, the Bradley-Terry model is used to model men's professional tennis for predicting match outcomes in tennis matches of men's singles. Model coefficients are estimated using data from January 2019 to September 2020 of 3439 matches. Ratings for each player are calculated using model coefficients. Player rankings are then calculated using these ratings. Comparison of model rankings with ATP rankings has shown satisfactory results. Winning probability for each player is calculated using model coefficients and ratings. These probability predictions are evaluated against four measures of performance. The results reveal that surface on which a game is played on contributes significantly towards a player's performance. Due to this impact of the surface, our model has produced superior player rankings for certain players who had been ranked very low in official ATP rankings. According to most of the performance measures, the model has shown good results for clay court data which are closely followed by hard court data. To calculate return on investment, model results are compared with the bookmakers' average odds and best available odds. It has been found that return on investment for a fitted model is highest in the case of clay court data in comparison to bookmaker's average odds and best odds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we will see, skill and luck are not incompatible in the way that undermine an epistemic probability account of luck, but the compossibility of the two still threatens the view. Hitting a game-winning hit to win a championship, by the best hitter of all time in baseball, is an example of skillful performance with a relatively low probability of success. As I see it, the diachronicity problem exploits different reference classes, comparing various streak possibilities with the intrinsic probability of a particular shot. Gregory Stoutenburg (forthcoming) responds to each of these arguments, and here I take up what I consider to be the deepest challenge for the probability account, the challenge concerning the relationship between skill and luck. [Extracted from the article]

This paper uses data mining technology to mathematically model the training movements of tennis players, establish a three-dimensional data information database of athletes utilizing depth imaging, analyze the data with data mining algorithms, and derive the results after comparative evaluation and analysis with a database of movement characteristics of tennis dribblers. This paper uses video observation and mathematical modeling to construct a tennis player training action evaluation model, which provides a reference basis for tennis players to improve and enhance their tactical level; it can also provide a reference for the development of sports training special theory of tennis projects and enrich the tactical diagnosis method of tennis matches. To improve the accuracy of 3D human pose estimation, this paper adopts a 3D skeleton point extraction method based on RGBD images; for the action alignment problem, this paper uses a dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm; for the similarity measure, this paper gives a Pearson correlation coefficient method based on the joint point features of human parts. This paper aims to conduct a systematic theoretical analysis of tennis players' training movements based on theories and methods such as system science theory and social network analysis. On this basis, the characteristics of tennis training technology development are analyzed from a combination of qualitative and quantitative perspectives, while the development of tennis player training is explored based on tracking observations of tennis player movement training, and finally, the attack and service characteristics of tennis training are analyzed to better provide some reference for the sustainable development of tennis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The rules of attack in table tennis tactics have been discovered by the coaches and researchers of the Chinese table tennis team (CTTT) through long-term practice. However, they are only empirical judgements and have not been objectively verified. Methods: The software "Table Tennis Master" has been used to analyse 200 matches of top players of CTTT against various opponents in recent years to obtain detailed statistics by analysing the effect of attack in the end line (AIEL) and attack out of the end line (AOEL). Results: (1) The scoring rate of the players was high after AIEL but very low after AOEL (p < 0.05); (2) the round of service (serve/receive) and level of skills had little influence on the effect of AIEL and AOEL; and (3) the timing of attack had a great influence on the effect of AIEL and AOEL (r > 0.9). Conclusions: In the high-level table tennis match, the rules of AIEL and AOEL are scientific. In accordance with the rules, the complex tactics can be simplified to the two concepts, AIEL and AOEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was conducted to determine the reasons and expectations of tennis players participating in the Eastern League organized by the tennis federation, preferring this sports branch. The research group consists of 138 athletes (53 women and 85 men) participating in the Eastern League Tennis Tournament. The scanning method was used in the research. As a data collection tool, a personal information form prepared by taking expert opinions and a scale form determining the reasons for preferring the tennis branch were used. SPSS statistical package program was used to analyze the data, and the significance was accepted as p<0.05. According to the results of the research, the research group; 73.9% are students, 39.9% are undergraduates, 56.5% are members of a club other than a tennis club, 55.8% do their training at Provincial Directorates of Youth and Sports, and 60%, It has been determined that 1 of them has a provincial championship. In addition, most of the athletes stated that the materials in the sports facilities were insufficient. It was seen that the friends, easy access to the facilities and prevalence, family and TV, cinema, and press-broadcasting were effective in preferring the tennis branch of the research group, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Beetroot juice is a source of dietary nitrate (NO3-) recognized as a potential ergogenic aid to enhance tolerance during endurance exercise of submaximal-to-maximal intensity. However, little is known about the effects of beetroot juice on exercise performance in intermittent sports such as tennis. The present study aimed to determine the effect of acute beetroot juice supplementation on movement patterns during a competitive tennis match in professional players.Methods: In a double-blind and randomized experiment, nine professional tennis players performed two experimental trials 3 h after ingesting either 70 mL of a commercially-available concentrated beetroot juice (6.4 mmol NO3-) or placebo (0.005 mmol NO3-). In each experimental trial, players completed a 3-set tennis match and two performance tests (i.e., serve speed and isometric handgrip strength) before and after the match. Match-play running performance was recorded using wearable GPS and accelerometer units.Results: In comparison to the placebo trial, the acute beetroot juice supplementation did not modify any match-play running performance (p = 0.178 to 0.997, d = 0.01 to 0.42). Furthermore, beetroot juice supplementation did not alter the pre-to-post match change in serve speed (p = 0.663, ηp2 = 0.03) or isometric handgrip strength (p = 0.219, ηp2 = 0.18).Conclusions: The current results indicated that acute ingestion of a commercialized shot of nitrate-rich beetroot juice (70 mL containing 6.4 mmol of NO3-) did not produce any performance benefit on tennis matchplay. Thus, acute beetroot juice supplementation seems an ergogenic aid with little value to enhance physical performance in professional tennis players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to compare the shot characteristics amongst different match periods in table tennis matches. For the shot characteristics of position, type, placement and efficacy, 13 men's singles matches comprising 72 sets from a round of 16 to the final in the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships were selected for notational analysis. Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests were conducted to quantify the differences in various categories of each variable amongst the initial, intermediate and ending match periods. There are no significant differences in each distribution between initial and intermediate periods. From intermediate to ending periods, significant decreases were found in chop type (p < 0.01) and middle long placement (p < 0.01), whereas a significant increase was found in backhand half placement (p < 0.05). By comparing the initial and ending periods, significant decreases were found in middle backhand turn position (p < 0.05), middle long placement (p < 0.01), chop (p < 0.01), and poor shots (p < 0.05). Therefore, shot characteristics in table tennis matches are match period related, and the main differences existed between the beginning and the ending period. From initial to ending period, the frequency of applying the middle long placements is decreasing. At the end of every set, the players adopted a safe stroke position, performed offensive stroke types and deployed flexible stroke placement. Results suggested that coaches can establish different scenarios on the basis of varying match periods for players' training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that short points (points of 0–4 shots) are crucial in determining the outcome of elite men's and women's grass court tennis matches. However, research has not explored the importance of short points in more detail to inform practice design. This study aimed to establish the prevalence and importance of individual rally lengths within short points (i.e. points of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 shots) in terms of winning elite grass court tennis matches. Using the recently-validated PWOL (Percentage of matches in which the Winner Outscored the Loser) method, point-level data from 211 men's and 209 women's Wimbledon singles matches between 2015 and 2017 were analysed, with short points stratified into individual rally lengths. Results revealed that 1 shot (aces and missed serve-returns) was the most common rally length, with 0 shots (double faults) the least common. Points won of 1 shot, 2 shots and 4 shots were associated with winning matches and can therefore be considered important, but points won of 0 shots and 3 shots were not associated with match outcome. These results highlight the importance of serving and returning strategies at Wimbledon, and indicate that serves and serve-returns should be afforded focus during grass court training. However, the findings appear to contravene anecdotal assertions that 'serve plus one' strategies (points won of 3 shots) are crucial in elite tennis, as they did not differentiate winning and losing players; so coaches should consider the associated practice designs and amount of time afforded to such strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Elo rating system, originally designed for rating chess players, has since become a popular way to estimate competitors' time-varying skills in many sports. Though the self-correcting Elo algorithm is simple and intuitive, it lacks a probabilistic justification which can make it hard to extend. In this paper, we present a simple connection between approximate Bayesian posterior mode estimation and Elo. We provide a novel justification of the approximations made by linking Elo to steady-state Kalman filtering. Our second key contribution is to observe that the derivation suggests a straightforward procedure for extending Elo. We use the procedure to derive versions of Elo incorporating margins of victory, correlated skills across different playing surfaces, and differing skills by tournament level in tennis. Combining all these extensions results in the most complete version of Elo presented for the sport yet. We evaluate the derived models on two seasons of men's professional tennis matches (2018 and 2019). The best-performing model was able to predict matches with higher accuracy than both Elo and Glicko (65.8% compared to 63.7 and 63.5%, respectively) and a higher mean log-likelihood (−0.615 compared to −0.632 and −0.633, respectively), demonstrating the proposed model's ability to improve predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wearable sensor systems are a emerging tools for the evaluation of the sport's activity and can be used to quantify the external workload of the athlete. The main goal of this paper was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the "Armbeep inertial measurement unit" (IMU) sensor both in a closed tennis exercise and in open matchplay. Twentyfour junior tennis players performed a baseline drill and played matches, during which they wore a combined accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. Video footage was concomitantly recorded using a digital video camera. The agreement between the measurements was assessed with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the standard error of measurement (SEM). A simple linear regression was used to predict the number of shots registered from the video and from the Armbeep IMU sensor's data. The number of total forehand and backhand shots during the drill repetitions showed an excellent test and re-test reproducibility (ICC≥0.90). There was a significant relationship between the Armbeep IMU sensor's number of contacts and the total number of shots (R2 = 0.938) which indicated the excellent reliability of the tested Armbeep IMU sensor for those parameters. Considering the accuracy of the total tennis shots and the small magnitude of error for wrist speed and acceleration, the Armbeep IMU sensor appears to be an appropriate on-court tool that can be used to monitor the hitting load during tennis practice and matches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of our daily activities, such as riding a bike to work or reading a book in a noisy cafe, and highly skilled activities, such as a professional playing a tennis match or a violin concerto, depend upon the ability of the brain to quickly make moment-to-moment adjustments to our behavior in response to the results of our actions. Particularly, they depend upon the ability of the neocortex to integrate the information provided by the sensory organs (bottom-up information) with internally generated signals such as expectations or attentional signals (top-down information). This integration occurs in pyramidal cells (PCs) and their long apical dendrite, which branches extensively into a dendritic tuft in layer 1 (L1). The outermost layer of the neocortex, L1 is highly conserved across cortical areas and species. Importantly, L1 is the predominant input layer for top-down information, relayed by a rich, dense mesh of long-range projections that provide signals to the tuft branches of the PCs. Here, we discuss recent progress in our understanding of the composition of L1 and review evidence that L1 processing contributes to functions such as sensory perception, cross-modal integration, controlling states of consciousness, attention, and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheelchair mobility is an important factor for success in wheelchair tennis. Tennis matches can be played on different surfaces, so the aim of the present study was to analyse the influence of court surface on wheelchair tennis mobility. Four male wheelchair tennis players (age = 33.75 ± 12.33 years) performed two tests (20 m sprint and agility t-test) on three official court surfaces (hard, artificial grass and clay). Photocell gates were used to record time and ascertain sprint and turn ability of the wheelchair tennis players. ANOVA test with post hoc pairwise comparisons were conducted to compare the mean differences among surfaces. Following the analysis, the wheelchair tennis players moved faster on hard or clay surfaces than on artificial grass although no statistically significant differences in the 20 m sprint and agility t-test between each of the three surfaces were found (p > 0.05). Moreover, the surface seems to affect mobility more, with respect to turns than in linear locomotion, although more research is needed on this aspect. The playing surfaces may need to be an extra variable in planning performance related activities such as techniques and tactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of research came in the fact of knowing the contribution of each of the physical and biomechanical variables to the level of performance of the front strikes, as well as seeking to develop some physical and mechanical capabilities of the accuracy of the performance of the front ground strike to improve the performance of the research sample for the junior group (14-16) years. As for the research problem: Despite the development of the tennis game in Iraq, it suffers from difficulties that impede the course of its development, and through the experience of the two field researchers, the research problem was identified and the previous studies and follow-up of the tennis tournaments for age groups were identified. Performing optimally and among these requirements are special physical abilities and biomechanical conditions that must be characterized by the skills of tennis, especially the forehand skill. Accordingly, the two researchers found the necessity to conduct tests on the physical abilities of tennis players, and to conduct a kinematic analysis to identify the biomechanical conditions of the striking and forehand skills, especially for tennis players aged (14-16) years, considering that knowing these variables for these ages can lead us to the correct path of skill performance and the need for Knowing the precise contribution of each variable to the performance to be later emphasized on these variables that contribute more accurately to performance and development, and to reinforce the other variables less contributing to training and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tennis, as one of the most popular individual sports in the world, holds an important role in the betting world. There are two main categories of bets: pre-match betting, which is conducted before the match starts, and live betting, which allows placing bets during the sporting event. Betting systems rely on setting sports odds, something historically done by domain experts. Setting odds for live betting represents a challenge due to the need to follow events in real-time and react accordingly. In tennis, hierarchical models often stand out as a popular choice when trying to predict the outcome of the match. These models commonly leverage a recursive approach that aims to predict the winner or the final score starting at any point in the match. However, recursive expressions inherently contain computational complexity which hinders the efficiency of methods relying on them. This paper proposes a more resource-effective alternative in the form of a combinatorial approach based on a binomial distribution. The resulting accuracy of the combinatorial approach is identical to that of the recursive approach while being vastly more efficient when considering the execution time, making it a superior choice for live betting in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of online video data, how to find the required information has become an urgent problem to be solved. This article focuses on sports videos and studies video classification and content-based retrieval techniques. Its purpose is to establish a mark and index of video content and to promote user acquisition through computer processing, analysis, and understanding of video content. Video tennis classification has high research and application value. This article focuses on video tennis based on the selection of the basic frame of each shot and proposes an algorithm for classification of shots based on average grouping. Based on this, we use a color-coded spatial detection method to detect the type of tennis match. Then, it integrates the results of audiovisual analysis to identify and classify exciting events in tennis matches. According to statistics, although the number of people participating in tennis cannot enter the top ten, the number of spectators ranks fourth. Four tennis tournaments, masters, and crown tournaments are held every year around the world. Watching large-scale international tennis matches has become a pillar of leisure and vacation for many people. Tennis matches last from two hours to four hours or more, and there are countless large and small tennis matches around the world every year, so the number of tennis records created is staggering. And artificial intelligence technology is rarely used in tennis in the sports world (5%), but football has reached 50%. Therefore, when dealing with such a large amount of data, we urgently need to find a fast and effective video retrieval classification method to find the required information. The experiment of tennis video classification research based on machine learning technology proves that the accuracy of tennis video classification reaches 98%, so this system has high feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grand Slam tennis tournaments are played on different surfaces. The aims of the present study were to analyse the technical differences in the Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open or AO, Roland Garros or RG, Wimbledon or W, and the United States Open or US), as well as to establish differences between winning and losing players. A total of 580 sets in 248 matches played in Grand Slams between 2017 and 2018 were analysed. To observe differences between the tournaments, a one-way analysis of variance (Kruskal Wallis) with the Bonferroni post-hoc test was performed. Univariate (Wilcoxon test) analysis of data was carried out to show the differences between the winning and losing performances of sets. Players who had more aces, points won on the 1st serve, winning shots and net points won more matches in the AO, W and US than in the RG (p<.05). However, in RG, players won more receiving points (43.56% of the points played) with chances to break the opponents' service game. The results also showed that the winning players were superior in both service and receiving, and the most influential variables on the outcome of the match were percentage of receiving points won, break points won, and percentage of points won on the first serve. Such knowledge may have implications for the design of appropriate game strategies and specific training sessions to improve performance in professional women's tennis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the performance of five different measures for forecasting men's and women's professional tennis matches. We use data derived from every match played at the 2018 and 2019 Wimbledon tennis championships, the 2019 French Open, the 2019 US Open, and the 2020 Australian Open. We look at the betting odds, the official tennis rankings, the standard Elo ratings, surface-specific Elo ratings, and weighted composites of these ratings, including and excluding the betting odds. The performance indicators used are prediction accuracy, calibration, model discrimination, Brier score, and expected return. We find that the betting odds perform relatively well across these tournaments, while standard Elo (especially for women's tennis) and surface-adjusted Elo (especially for men's tennis) also perform well on a range of indicators. For all but the hard-court surfaces, a forecasting model which incorporates the betting odds tends also to perform well on some indicators. We find that the official ranking system proved to be a relatively poor measure of likely performance compared to betting odds and Elo-related methods. Our results add weight to the case for a wider use of Elo-based approaches within sports forecasting, as well as arguably within the player rankings methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]