The development of division III tennis student-athletes: A comparison of Chinese and American colleges

Abstract

The investigation compared the development between Chinese and American Division III tennis student-athletes to explore. In doing so, we aimed to provide a reproducible way of promoting Chinese collegiate tennis by complementing or mimicking the American experience. In this case study, the researchers used triangulation, including qualitative methods (eight semi-structured interviews, including six tennis student-athletes and two head coaches), comparison, and observation to increase the validity and reliability of the data. A noticeable difference between the two groups was that, compared to the U.S., the Chinese tennis student-athletes did not pay much attention to academics, the coaches lacked effective strategies for team management, and the training and competition mechanisms were not reasonable enough. However, there were some similarities across the two groups, including women student-athletes generally performed better than men, the goals of both developmental programs met respective basic requirements, and the coaches were successful in the recruitment of student-athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Student-athletes
• tennis
• Chinese
• American
• college athletics
• NCAA
• CUTL
• difference

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Haichao Sun

Haichao Sun is a doctoral student at the Beijing Sport University. He received dual master degrees from Beijing Sport University and Springfield College. His research area is the Olympics, the education of college athletes, and the internationalization of sports.

Wenpu Yang

Wenpu Yang is a Masters student at Beijing Sport University, majoring in Physical Education and Training. She graduated from Chongqing University as a tennis student-athlete.

Mara Simon

Dr Mara Simon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Education and Recreation at Springfield College. Her research area are sports sociology and comparative sports.