Game Activity and Physiological Responses of Young Tennis Players in a Competition With Two Consecutive Matches in a Day

Purpose:This study aimed to determine whether the game activity and physiological responses of young tennis players differed depending on the session of play (e.g., morning (MOR) vs. afternoon (AFT)) and the final match outcome (e.g., winners vs. losers), during a simulated competition with two matches on the same day.Methods:Twelve well-trained male tennis players (14.5±0.8 years) took part in a simulated competition of two 3-set matches separated by 3 h. All the matches were video-recorded and the participants were monitored using 10 Hz global positioning (GPS) units including a heart-rate (HR) monitor. Effect size (ES) statistics were used to investigate the magnitudes of the differences.Results:During the AFT matches, in absolute terms, players covered longer total distance (ES=moderate), ran more distance between 0 and ≤ 4m·s-1 (ES=small-to-large) compared to MOR matches. Total duration was also longer (ES=large) in the AFT, where the rest time between rallies was also longer (ES=very large). HR was ...