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Today, tennis is a world class competitive sport attracting millions of players and fans world wide. A constant programme of tournaments and events takes place throughout the year. Competitive tennis is played under the rules of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and its competitions range from top professional events-for example, the Grand Slams and the Olympic Tennis Event-to the entry level ITF men's and women's circuits, including tournaments and team events for junior, seniors, and wheelchair players. The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tours which comprise more than 60 (WTA) to 80 (ATP) tournaments, in about 40 countries, are organised in different categories, which reflect prize money and ranking points. Thus there are many different opportunities for all levels of players to compete in any given week of the year. In addition, tennis is a common recreational sport, which is enjoyed by people of all standards.
Tennis is characterised by quick starts and stops, repetitive overhead motions, and the involvement of several muscle groups during the different strokes, which fluctuate randomly from brief periods of maximal or near maximal work to longer periods of moderate and low intensity activity. 1 In addition, tennis is the only major sport to be played on a wide variety of surfaces, with different ball types, and matches are played as the best of three or five sets. Modifications to the scoring system, match duration, playing surface, and ball type are known to affect the physical and physiological demands of tennis match play. 2- 7 Accordingly, these variables might dictate the type of athlete who will be successful in tennis. Generally, players with a powerful serve prefer fast surfaces (hard or grass) giving them the ability to move forward to the net, whereas strong baseliners tend to be more effective on slow surfaces (clay).
In this article, characteristics of tennis match play will be described using point duration, work-rest intervals, heart rate, oxygen consumption (V o 2 ), blood lactate concentrations, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE).
MATCH ACTIVITY
Tennis match play is characterised by intermittent exercise, alternating short (4-10 second) bouts of high intensity and short (10-20 second) recovery bouts, interrupted by several periods of longer duration (60-90 seconds).). 10- 16 Rallies...