Tennis serve performances at break points: Approaching practice patterns for coaching

Abstract

Tennis comprises specific match situations when winning the next point is crucial. These big points can decide about a win or loss and, thus, reasonably arouse mental stress. Break points (BPs) are considered as big points and the outcome is influenced by, among a variety of other factors, the serve, which is well accepted being one of the dominant strokes in Men’s tennis. In this study, we examined the serve behaviour for male players in the Wimbledon tournament 2016 to investigate the possible impacts of presumed mental stress within the situation of BPs, and further, if winning players perform better than losing players. A total of 28.843 points were analysed and divided into BP (n = 2.035) and non-break points – referred to as regular points (RP; n = 26.808).

Keywords:

• Score
• match strategy
• Wimbledon
• mental strain
• education pressure

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their gratitude to Tim Pütz for valuable comments during proofreading. Furthermore, we wish to thank unknown reviewers for their valuable comments during the reviewing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.