A Cluster Analysis Approach to Profile Men and Women s Volley Positions in Professional Tennis Matches (Doubles)

[EN] Background: Tennis ball tracking technology allows the aquirement of novel and reliable data about several performance indicators, such as volley positions. This information is key to understand match dynamics in doubles tennis and to better help preparing players for the demands they will face...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Martínez-Gallego, Rafael, Ramón-Llín, Jesús, Crespo, Miguel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/205322
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/205322
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Racquet sports
Match analysis
Tactics
Analytics
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] Background: Tennis ball tracking technology allows the aquirement of novel and reliable data about several performance indicators, such as volley positions. This information is key to understand match dynamics in doubles tennis and to better help preparing players for the demands they will face in match play. As such, the purpose of this study was to describe and compare the different types of volley positions in men's and women's doubles professional tennis. (2) Methods: Ball tracking data were collected for 46 women (Billie Jean King Cup) and 96 men's doubles matches (Davis Cup). The variables used were the distance to the net, the distance to the centre of the court and the height of the impact. A K-Means cluster analysis was used to identify in each subsample different profiles of volley locations. (3) Results: The inferential analysis revealed differences in men's (distance to the net eta(2) = 0.72, distance to the centre of the court eta(2) = 0.77 and impact height eta(2) = 0.63) and women's subsamples (distance to the net eta(2) = 0.48, distance to the centre of the court eta(2) = 0.52 and impact height eta(2) = 0.51). (4) Conclusions: The results allowed the suggestion of a higher variability in men's matches, as there were seven different clusters identified, and only four in women's.