Tennis

This paper aims to discuss several changes which has influenced the development of women's clothing in tennis. It is described on the example of the Wimbledon Championships as this is the oldest and considered as the greatest tennis tournament in the world. For the first time Wimbledon was played in 1877 in London and some of its traditions have been already established that time. I focused mainly on the tradition of the dress code. First, I present the history of tennis fashion, as tennis has always been regarded as a sport for elites, thus the proper clothing for the players included long skirts, corsets, blouses and hats. It did not resemble the costume of current players because the clothes became shorter and shorter with almost every decade. Each time a lady appeared on the court with something which did not stick to the rules she provoked a scandal. Usually those changes were present in fashion after all and started to be commonly used in tennis due to the need of comfort. Secondly, I show the ways nowadays’ players shock the audience because they cannot shorten their apparel anymore. Later on, I mention also the changes in men’s attire. The last part of the paper is devoted to some other Wimbledon’s traditions. It is concluded that despite the fact that all the time someone has wanted to change the Championships’ tradition it has never been changed, which shows us the importance of it to the British culture.

Anna Kournikova arguably has offered the ‘model’ template for female sport stardom since the 1990s. Blonde, lithe and athletic, her tennis performances were re-orientated to excessive mediatised and commercialised processes that overwhelmingly centered on appearance across her entire career. Such excesses were a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Kournikova’s limited tennis success (doubles’ victories but no coveted singles’ titles) subjected her to ridicule by being lavished with ‘star’ qualities but failing sport’s assumed inherent criteria of talent, achievement and meritocracy. On the other hand, the incessant media vortex exacerbated Kournikova’s fame as media object, sex object and commodity-spectacle.

Historically, notable antecedents from women’s sport were framed with an emphasis on beauty over athletic performance. However, the pronounced shift for Kournikova projected more overt and explicit representations of sexualisation, ‘glamour’, and idealisations of her beauty and body than had accompanied her predecessors. In contradistinction, Kournikova was complicit with the exploitative and sexualised framework, arguably knowingly and willingly reproducing sexualised commodity-object performances in return for lucrative media exposure and financial gain on and off the court.

Kournikova operates as a forerunner for the strategic and agential alignment of female appearance with sport, media and commercial personas. Post-Kournikova, stars were expected to blend sporting prowess and achievement alongside beauty (Maria Sharapova, Danica Patrick) to counter traditional media anti-talent narratives. Current self-presentational social media strategies seemingly showcase appearance over sporting achievements (Eugenie Bouchard, Paige Spiranac), proffering self-objectifying and self-sexualising ‘athlete-as-model’ personas that provide playful contemporary exemplars of the ‘Anna Kournikova effect’.

The purpose of the study was to specify and define the differences of psychophysical stress in elite tennis players under practice and tournament conditions. Basal, pre- and postcompetition urine samples of 26 nationally ranked players (NR) were analysed for concentrations of epinephrine (EPI) and norepinephrine (NE) under practice (P) and tournament conditions (T). Results were completed by the values obtained from two internationally ranked players (IR) competing in 6 (player A) and 5 (player B) Davis-Cup matches, respectively. In NR, pre- and postcompetition concentrations for EPI were significantly higher under tournament conditions (T: 1.33+/-0.65 and 3.66+/-2.51 microg/100 mg creatinine vs P: 0.61+/-0.39 and 0.97+/-0.59 microg/100 mg creatinine). The NE/EPI ratio showed significantly inverse results (T: 3.53+/-1.87 and 3.58+/-1.59 vs P: 8.08+/-6.99 and 10.03+/-6.58), whereas the concentration of NE did not differ between the two conditions. Significant correlations were found ...

One purpose of this work was to study the relationship of goal orientations and the perceived motivational climate created by the coach in relation to 219 competitive Spanish tennis players': a) perceived improvement in different facets of the game, b) satisfaction with their competitive results, overall level of play, and coach, and c) ratings of their coach. The second purpose was to examine whether the dependent variables were best predicted by the perceived situationally emphasized goal structure created by the coach and/or the athletes' dispositional goal perspective. Intermediate (N=70), advanced (N=124), and professional (N=25) level players completed Spanish versions of the TEOSQ and the PMCSQ-2 and items assessing perceived improvement specific to tennis, satisfaction and coach ratings. The results were consistent with the tenets of goal perspective theory and provide further support for the promotion of a task involving atmosphere in sport.

By examining the trans-disciplinary neologisms called "terminological junctions" in writings of Arakawa and Gins, one may find adequate conditions for making visible, and perhaps resolving a central paradox in the thinking of Gilles Deleuze, who exhorts us to "forge alliances" across scientific percepts, philosophical concepts and artistic constructs, and yet denies the adequacy of metaphor specifically, and tropes generally, because of the taint of representation and transcendence. Drawing on my earlier work which emphasizes the "agency" of tropes (by reference to Peter Galison and Bruno Latour) I attempt to recuperate tropes from within a Deleuzean frame, through an analysis of of "terminological junctions" as "shocks of thought."

The purpose of the study was to compare selected physiological responses during singles tennis match play and continuous running at a similar mean oxygen uptake (VO2). The study consisted of two main parts, which were separated by 1 week. In the first part, 12 nationally ranked senior tennis players [six females and six males; 47.2 (6.6) years old and 47.0 (5.4) years old, respectively] each completed a 2-h singles tennis match (TE). Mean VO2 during TE [23.1 (3.1) ml.kg(-1). min(-1) for the women and 25.6 (2.8) ml.kg(-1).min(-1) for the men] was measured by a portable spirometry-telemetry system and corresponded to 56% (women) or 54% (men) of their respective maximum VO2. In the second part, the relative VO2 data measured during TE were used to set a similar workload during a 2-h treadmill run at a constant level (RU). At the measured time points, heart rate [140.1 (15.5) beats.min(-1) vs 126.4 (15.1) beats. min(-1)], lactate concentration [1.53 (0.65) mmol.l(-1) vs 1.01 (0.38) mmol...

At the end of April 2018, and two years after the four organisations principally responsible for governing
professional tennis at the international level (the ATP, the WTA, the ITF, and the Grand Slam Board)
appointed the Independent Review Panel, the Independent Review of Integrity in Tennis Interim Report was
published. This Report’s intention is not only to provide information about the malicious practices that exist
within tennis, but also to warn stakeholders about the seriousness of the situation and present a series of
recommendations to address the problems identified. In this article, Enric Ripoll Gonzalez of Ruiz-Huerta &
Crespo Sports Lawyers details the history leading up to this most recent report and the recommendations
put forward to address once and for all the integrity problem that continues to blight tennis.

This study aimed to examine player perceptions and biomechanical responses to tennis surfaces and to evaluate the influence of prior clay court experience. Two groups with different clay experiences (experience group, n = 5 and low-experience group, n = 5) performed a 180° turning movement. Three-dimensional ankle and knee movements (50 Hz), plantar pressure of the turning step (100 Hz) and perception data (visual analogue scale questionnaire) were collected for two tennis courts (acrylic and clay). Greater initial knee flexion (acrylic 20. 8 ± 11.2° and clay 32.5 ± 9.4°) and a more upright position were reported on the clay compared to the acrylic court (P < 0.05). This suggests adaptations to increase player stability on clay. Greater hallux pressures and lower midfoot pressures were observed on the clay court, allowing for sliding whilst providing grip at the forefoot. Players with prior clay court experience exhibited later peak knee flexion compared to those with low experie...

There is no previous research in tennis doubles tactics and efficiency of tactics. There are several
tactical variants for the serving team in tennis doubles; however the classical formation is mostly used.
Other tactical variants are Australian formation and I-formation. Our aim was to find, how often and
how effectively are these tactical variants used in men’s and women’s tennis doubles at the international
level. We observed 22 men’s matches and 24 women’s matches on the ITF tournaments (International
tennis federation). Every point that was played was marked. The observers wrote down the used tactical
variant of each point and its efficiency. The classical formation dominates in men’s and women’s
doubles. Men sometimes used the I-formation. Women used very rarely the Australian formation. In
men’s doubles, the I-formation was used more when serving from the ad-court (mostly at score 40:30),
and with higher efficiency. I-formation reached higher efficiency than classical formation. We
recommend using the I-formation more often in men’s doubles. I-formation and returning against Iformation
are playing activities, that should be in good control by players and the players should
practice these actions.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the Lawn Tennis Association introduced numerous policies to remove barriers associated with social exclusion in tennis clubs. Ethnographic research was conducted within one club to analyse the incidence of social exclusion, and consider the success of LTA policies in these regards. Results suggested the club made structural changes to receive LTA funding, such as removing exclusive membership and clothing restrictions, hiring coaches and establishing school-club links, yet its culture remained entirely exclusive and inaccessible to new members. For analysis, Elias and Scotson’s “Established-Outsider Relations” theoretical framework is applied: to discover who was excluded, how and why, and, to set the outcomes of power struggles between members in the wider social and historical contexts of changing LTA policies.

This article examines the social significance of Real Tennis among the Western European nobility during its heyday of the sixteenth century. Underpinned theoretically by Norbert Elias’s seminal empirical work The Civilising Process, this article seeks to identify the societal preconditions for the emergence of Real Tennis, and provide explanations for its diffusion across Western Europe and subsequent boom in popularity among the nobility. A critique is offered of the current body of literature written on Real Tennis, with an aim to address a general lack of focus on the game’s ‘social’ elements and how their development is linked with structural changes to the game over the centuries. The article then goes on to examine the ways in which Real Tennis became a symbol of prestige and a tool for social mobility among the increasingly status-competitive royal court nobility. Played during royal festivals, the game provided opportunities for nobles to engage in conspicuous consumption through architectural, clothing and gambling displays; having an entourage in accompaniment to the noble players; and, through the style of play and behavioural control, exhibiting self-restraint and foresight. Overall, an attempt is made to apply Elias’s theoretical framework to aid our understanding of the development of Real Tennis, a game that has never been characterised by overt ‘violence’ of the kind examined previously by other sociologists employing an Eliasian framework.

The aim of this study is to assess the effect of tennis technique training and games on reaction times of 10-12 years old boys. For this study, 40 subjects who did not perform any physical activity volunteered. Subjects randomly assigned two groups: Experimental group: 20, control group: 20. The experimental group was subjected to 8 week three days a week and 60 minute per session tennis and education with games training program modified according to relevant age group. The control group did not participate any physical activity. Visual, auditory and mix reaction times were measured by Newtest 1000 reaction timer. Subjects’ reaction times were measured twice before and after training program. SPSS 22.0 package program was used for analysis of the data obtained from the study. Independent Sample T test was used for comparison between groups, and paired samples t test was analyzed at p <0.05 significance level. As a result of the study, there was no difference in the control group, and after eight weeks of tenement-specific games and technical training, the research group revealed significant changes between auditory, visual and mixed reaction times in both hands.

summary
    The research about the strength physical quality has been developed over four decades by Russian scientists. The focus of these investigations has been on the influence that this physical quality provides the athlete's training and how much can affect the performance. In contemporary programs of sports training the force has been noted as an important element in the athlete's improvement. Thus, knowledge of the proper methodology of strength training by coaches allow their athletes better optimize their performance. The force components are presented in different ways in the game of tennis. This article aims to inter-relate the concept of force and its manifestations on the tennis mode, beyond the presentation of exercises aimed at enhancing training in the sport.
    Key words: Strength training. Tennis. Release acyclic activities