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The history of campaigns against apartheid through sport reveals messy relationships between athletes and social movements, advancing recent debates over the possibilities and constraints of sport politics. The anti-apartheid movement coalesced around a transnational sporting boycott to isolate South Africa, but the American tennis icon Arthur Ashe made a series of visits to compete there in the 1970s. Ashe believed in participation as the primary mechanism for change through sport, only later embracing the boycott. When tennis tournaments and rugby tours brought South Africans to the United States, anti-apartheid organizations mobilized their own confrontational protests to interrupt play. As the growing movement won over athletes and South African propaganda turned toward commercial sport spectacle, the special position that athletes occupied provided leverage. However, their magnified legacy also obscured how resistance to apartheid through sport found success in the first place. Despite the appeal of participation as the natural path of progress, strategies of confrontation often proved more effective in the struggle against apartheid. Questioning the politics of participation and widening the frame to consider confrontation changes our understanding of sport politics, looking beyond individual athletes and bringing everyday people off the sidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional tennis tournaments have onsite sports medicine physicians who oversee the athletes' overall health during competition, including musculoskeletal injury and general illnesses. The medical team is composed of orthopedic and non-operative sports medicine physicians. Frequently, the tournament doctors require imaging to localize and grade musculoskeletal injuries and to make decisions regarding treatment, safe training, and return to match play. The most versatile and readily available imaging modality to evaluate for acute musculoskeletal injury is point-of-care ultrasonography. In 2015, a dedicated radiology service was created at the US Open by bringing in a musculoskeletal radiologist who would perform ultrasounds in a formal and consistent manner. In addition, the radiologist was tasked with onsite radiography as well as review of all MRI examinations done at the imaging center. This article describes how this radiology service was implemented, what types of studies were performed and the advantages of having an onsite musculoskeletal radiologist at the tournament. This service allowed the medical team to provide the comprehensive and efficient medical care required in a major professional tennis event. It also showed the value of having the in-person expertise of the musculoskeletal radiologist in the sports medicine team. This same model could be applied to other professional sporting events. [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]

Match fixing is a growing threat to the integrity of sport, facilitated by new online in-play betting markets sufficiently liquid to allow substantial profits to be made from manipulating an event. Screens to detect a fix employ in-play forecasting models whose predictions are compared in real-time with observed betting odds on websites around the world. Suspicions arise where model odds and market odds diverge. We provide real examples of monitoring for football and tennis matches and describe how suspicious matches are investigated by analysts before a final assessment of how likely it was that a fix took place is made. Results from monitoring driven by this application of forensic statistics have been accepted as primary evidence at cases in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, leading more sports outside football and tennis to adopt this approach to detecting and preventing manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study investigates skill transfer from Virtual Reality (VR) sports training to the real world, using the fast-paced sport of table tennis. Background: A key assumption of VR training is that the learned skills and experiences transfer to the real world. Yet, in certain application areas, such as VR sports training, the research testing this assumption is sparse. Design: Real-world table tennis performance was assessed using a mixed-model analysis of variance. The analysis comprised a between-subjects (VR training group vs control group) and a within-subjects (pre- and post-training) factor. Method: Fifty-seven participants (23 females) were either assigned to a VR training group (n = 29) or no-training control group (n = 28). During VR training, participants were immersed in competitive table tennis matches against an artificial intelligence opponent. An expert table tennis coach evaluated participants on real-world table tennis playing before and after the training phase. Blinded regarding participant's group assignment, the expert assessed participants’ backhand, forehand and serving on quantitative aspects (e.g. count of rallies without errors) and quality of skill aspects (e.g. technique and consistency). Results: VR training significantly improved participants’ real-world table tennis performance compared to a no-training control group in both quantitative (p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.08) and quality of skill assessments (p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.10). Conclusions: This study adds to a sparse yet expanding literature, demonstrating real-world skill transfer from Virtual Reality in an athletic task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities turn to sport as a vehicle for encouraging economic development, sport managers increasingly find themselves in the midst of debates over urban policy. The purpose of this study was to examine the decision-making process that brought the Volvo International Tennis Tournament to New Haven, Connecticut. Because New Haven has been the center of classic debates over community power. the Volvo tennis case offers an excellent opportunity to examine the use of the theories of urban politics in understanding how development decisions are made. The Volvo case suggests that a synthesis of Stone's regime theory and Peterson's econornistic paradigm provides a useful model for identifying the key players in economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team Tennis competitions produce aggregate scores for teams, and thus team rankings, based on head-to-head matchups of individual team members. Similar scoring rules can be used to rank any two groups that must be compared on the basis of paired elements. We explore such rules in terms of their strategic and social choice characteristics, with particular emphasis on the role of cycles. We first show that cycles play an important role in promoting competitive balance, and show that cycles allow for a maximum range of competitive balance within a league of competing teams. We also illustrate the impact that strategic behavior can have on the unpredictability of competition outcomes, and show for a general class of team tennis scoring rules that a rule is strategy-proof if and only if it is acyclic (dictatorial) and manipulable otherwise. Given the benefits of cycles and their relationship with manipulability, a league valuing competitive balance may invite such social choice violations when choosing a scoring rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the large number of studies that have examined the acute effects of different warm up modalities (WU) on physical performance, none of them have documented the time course of potential performance recovery in tennis players. The aim of this study was twofold: (a) to analyze and compare the acute effects of two different WU modalities (traditional WU [TWU] and dynamic WU [DWU]) on physical performance (i.e., CMJ, sprint, serve speed and accuracy) in elite junior players, as well as (b) to monitor the time course of any WU-induced changes after 30 and 60 min of simulated match-play. Twelve junior elite players completed both WUs modalities (TWU and DWU) in a counterbalanced order on separate days. In each experimental session, counter movement jump (CMJ), 20-m sprint, tennis serve speed and accuracy tests were performed before (immediately after TWU or DWU) during (30 min) and after 60 min of a simulated match play. Measures were compared via four factorial (WU intervention and time) repeated measures ANOVAs. There were main effects of WU (TWU and DWU) throughout the time for all the variables analysed. The results indicate that DWU routine led to significantly faster 20 m sprint times and higher CMJs as well as faster and more accurate tennis serves at both post warm-up and 30 min match-play testing moments in comparison with the scores reported by the TWU routine (p < 0.05; positive effects with a probability of >75–99%). No significant intergroup differences were found at 60-min match-play testing moment in any variable (except for the 20 m sprint). Therefore, the findings of this study recommend for optimal performance in these elite tennis players, DWU routines should be performed prior to formal training and competition rather than TWU routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We aimed to a) introduce a new Test to Exhaustion Specific to Tennis (TEST) and compare performance (test duration) and physiological responses to those obtained during the 20-m multistage shuttle test (MSST), and b) determine to which extent those variables correlate with performance level (tennis competitive ranking) for both test procedures. Methods: Twenty-seven junior players (8 males, 19 females) members of the national teams of the French Tennis Federation completed MSST and TEST, including elements of the game (ball hitting, intermittent activity, lateral displacement), in a randomized order. Cardiorespiratory responses were compared at submaximal (respiratory compensation point) and maximal loads between the two tests. Results: At the respiratory compensation point oxygen uptake (50.1 ± 4.7 vs. 47.5 ± 4.3 mL.min-1.kg-1, p = 0.02), but not minute ventilation and heart rate, was higher for TEST compared to MSST. However, load increment and physiological responses at exhaustion did not differ between the two tests. Players’ ranking correlated negatively with oxygen uptake measured at submaximal and maximal loads for both TEST (r = -0.41; p = 0.01 and -0.55; p = 0.004) and MSST (r = -0.38; P = 0.05 and -0.51; p = 0.1). Conclusion: Using TEST provides a tennis-specific assessment of aerobic fitness and may be used to prescribe aerobic exercise in a context more appropriate to the game than MSST. Results also indicate that VO2 values both at submaximal and maximal load reached during TEST and MSST are moderate predictors of players competitive ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vibrational behavior of a tennis racket was studied using a speckle-pattern interferometry system. Specifically, the first 12 mode shapes of a racket are shown and discussed. In addition, the speckle-pattern interferometry system was used to compare the effects of four commercially available vibration damping systems. It was found that these vibration dampers produce a variety of effects on the vibrational behavior of the racket, though these effects may not be noticeable during play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the relations between representation and politics that arose in conjunction with the Davis Cup celebrated in Bastad, Sweden, in 1975, an event that served as a frame for the crossing of contending ideologies and visual images. During the event, the Norwegian artist Kjartan Slettemark produced a poster that encouraged people to stop the tennis matches in pro­test against the Chilean military regime and which, as part of a larger visual and written polemic, culminated with Chile's defeat in the matches. This essay delves into the ways a sports competition was transformed into a cultural and political event in which concepts such as the nation and ideologies were disputed. Analyzing different discourses and images reproduced in the media, the tensions underlining the sociopolitical ambience of the epoch, which were triggered by the matches, will be traced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review focuses on the characteristics of tennis players during match play and provides a greater insight into the energy demands of tennis. A tennis match often lasts longer than an hour and in some cases more than five hours. During a match there is a combination of periods of maximal or near maximal work and longer periods of moderate and low intensity activity. Match intensity varies considerably depending on the players' level, style, and sex. It is also influenced by factors such as court surface and ball type. This has important implications for the training of tennis players, which should resemble match intensity and include interval training with appropriate work to rest ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A notational analysis of singles events at all four Grand Slam tournaments between 1997 and 1999 was conducted to determine the influence of the sex of the player and court surface on elite tennis strategy. Rallies of 7.1 ± 2.0 s in women's singles were significantly longer than those in men's singles (5.2 ± 1.8 s; P < 0.001). Rallies of 6.3 ± 1.8 s at the Australian Open, 7.7 ± 1.7 s at the French Open, 4.3 ± 1.6 s at Wimbledon and 5.8 ± 1.9 s at the US Open were recorded. Rallies were significantly longer at the French Open than at any other tournament (P < 0.05) and significantly shorter at Wimbledon than at any other tournament (P < 0.05). In women's singles, 52.8 ± 12.4% of points were baseline rallies, significantly more than in men's singles (28.6 ± 19%; P < 0.001). The proportion of baseline rallies played at the French Open (51.9 ± 14.2% of points) was significantly greater than at the Australian Open (46.6 ± 12.5%), Wimbledon (19.7 ± 19.4%) and the US Open (35.4 ± 19.5%; P < 0.05). The results show that both the sex of the player and surface of the court have a significant influence on the nature of singles tennis at Grand Slam tournaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]