Science and the Major Racket Sports

As athletes, we at times ponder things like the subtle benefits of a sports drink between games compared to a glass of water. And as squash players, we may consider the percentages of our opponent's shot selection being hit from different areas of the court. "If I drop here, is my opponent more likely to re-drop or hit a cross court shot?"

As it turns out a paper was published in 2003 by the Journal of Sports Sciences discussing these points and others in the major racket sports: squash, racquetball, tennis and table tennis.

The author, Adrian Lees, reviewed sports physiology, nutrition, notational analysis, biomechanics, sports medicine and engineering, and psychology. It's not a quick read, but despite its age there are some interesting discoveries.

For example, science has been helpful in defining training programs to improve player fitness, guiding players nutritionally and psychologically in match preparation, and in identifying effective strategies and tactics used for specific opponents. The findings relate to squash as well as other racquet sports.

Some excerpts from the author's findings on physiology and notational analysis are below.

Physiology
  
In a 1998 study, players who used a carbohydrate drink during simulated match play maintained their accuracy at the end of the third game in squash and were 19% better than those who had taken a placebo drink.

According to the study, carbohydrates should also form the basis of post-match meals, which helps in the restoration of muscle and liver glycogen.


Notational Analysis

The process of recording and analyzing the movements made by players during play, or notational analysis, has been widely applied to racket sports.

As part of this study researched discovered that over a period of 15 years, the average number of shots per rally at elite level in squash decreased from 20 to 14. (The paper does not indicate the timing, but presumably the study was done from 1983-1998 when the findings were released.)

 
Researchers were also able to successfully build a probability matrix for squash players depicting the likely shot response to each preceding condition. The author suggests this type of model may be used to identify optimal tactical strategies against a particular opponent.

To read the full 2003 study from the Journal of Sports Sciences, please click here.

The author, Adrian Lees, is from the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool
John Moores University, Liverpool, UK. a.lees@livjm.ac.uk