A comparison of elite tennis players' motor abilities with those of elite basketball, soccer and volleyball players

The difference in certain motor abilities was tested among four different groups of athletes. Specifically, this study compared elite tennis players' reaction time (RT), movement time (MT) and agility (AG), to soccer, basketball and volleyball players' MT, RT and AG; Thirty-three subjects were tested in the Wingate laboratory and tennis court. The laboratory tests included 25 trials of foot RT and MT recordings for each subject. These tests were conducted on a highly sensitive metal plate (a force plate that detects sensitive movement, e.g., a foot lifted of the plate) attached to a computerized device that records the RT and MT. The AG was examined on a tennis court, using a new test,--the star Drill. This test was repeated twice for each subject. (1) The volleyball players were found to have the fastest RTs, followed by basketball, soccer and tennis players, respectively. (2) The MT test found the soccer players to be the quickest followed by basketball, volleyball and tennis players respectively. (3) The tennis players were found to be the most agile, followed by volleyball, soccer and basketball players respectively. However, the only test that showed these differences to be significant was the MT test.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Kinesiology

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1998

Author dc:creator

• Shalev, Sarit

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lawrence Golding

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/853

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1852