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40Coordination determinants of technical skills of young female tennis players
UDC 796.015
Ewa Waldzinska1 PhD Tomasz Waldzinski2
Dr.Hab., Professor Tomasz Niznikowski3 1 2Lomza State University of Applied Sciences 3Jozef Pilsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw, Department of Physical Education and Health in Biala Podlaska, Poland
Corresponding author: [email protected]
Abstract
Objective of this study was to obtain knowledge on coordination determinants of technical skills of female tennis players aged 9 and 11.
Materials and methods. The study included female tennis players (n= 60), body height (9 yrs ± 6.1 -137± 5.7 cm; 6; 11 yrs±7.2 -148± 5.2 cm), body mass (9 yrs - 34± 1.9 kg; 11 yrs - 43± 2.3 kg).
To assess the female tennis players' technical skills the test of 100 balls was applied. To control coordination motor abilities, the following tests were used: certain EUROFIT tests (the flamingo test, tapping the discs), the Spalding slalom running test, the shuttle run test, the Spider test, jumps over a skipping rope, jumps in the hexagon, the Starosta test, the eye-hand test, the test of simple reaction and the test of complex reaction.
Results. It was discovered that in the group of 9-year-old female tennis players, the simple reaction test result demonstrates the best predictive properties (it accounts for 19% of the variance in the test of 100 balls). In the group of 11-year-old female tennis players, the result of the shuttle run test independently accounts for 38% of the variance of the dependent variable. Conclusion. The effectiveness of performing the test of 100 balls depends on different predictors of coordination motor abilities.
Keywords: tennis, 100 balls test, coordination motor abilities.
Introduction. Tennis is regarded as the kind of sport in which, in addition to showing a high level of concentration and anticipation of the opponent's behaviour, technical skills as well as their coordination determinants play a key role.
Finding ways to achieve great results of sport performance is one of the biggest challenges of modern sport. The willingness to meet this challenge makes us constantly search for and deepen our knowledge of the phenomena accompanying the optimization of the training process in sport at different stages of advancement [1,2,3]. Many professionals believe that in the long-term process of training a young player, apart from teaching and learning about techniques and tactics, it is important to develop fundamental and specific conditioning and coordination motor abilities. The development of the latter favours the develop-
ment of fundamental motor skills, including the basics of technique, which is useful in the subsequent stages of training and makes it possible to achieve a higher level of sports mastery [4,5,6].
There is no doubt that coordination skills are of fundamental value to a tennis player. In the studies on the optimization of the training process, many authors attempted to identify factors determining the level of sports performance in tennis, and they pointed to their diversity. Some of them attribute an important role to such coordinating abilities as body balance, rhythmization, eye-hand coordination, simple and complex reaction time, kinaesthetic differentiation of movements, time of a single movement, frequency of movements and agility [7,8,9,10].
Therefore, it seems useful to search for coordination determinants of technical skills, which will make it
possible to bring additional information to the general training technology and to optimize the training process of female tennis players aged 9 and 11 a comprehensive stage.
Material and methods. The study included female tennis players (n= 60), body height (9 yrs ± 6.1 -137± 5.7 cm; 11 yrs±7.2 - 148± 5.2 cm), body mass (9 yrs - 34± 1.9 kg; 11 yrs 43± 2.3 kg). The players who took part in the study trained tennis three times a week in the clubs of Podlaskie region. The participants were divided according to their age categories.
Technical skills of the female tennis players were evaluated using the test of 100 balls. To control coordination motor abilities, the following tests were applied: some EUROFIT tests (the flamingo test, tapping the discs), the Spalding slalom running test, the shuttle run test, the Spider test, jumps over a skipping rope, jumps in the hexagon, the Starosta test, the eye-hand test, the test of simple reaction and the test of complex reaction. The normality of distributions was evaluated with the Shapiro-Wilk test. As they were normal, parametric tests were applied. Subsequently, correlation analyses were carried out using multivariate linear regression analyses with the stepwise method of inserting predic-
tors into the model. The intention was to find out which coordination model in the two-age groups would be the best to anticipate technical skills. The predictors introduced in the analysis were the results of the subsequent coordination tests, and the dependent variable was the result of the test of 100 balls.
Results. In the group of 9-year-old female tennis players, the simple reaction test result had the best predictive properties (it accounted for 19% of the variance in the test of 100 balls). Adding the jump measurement results to the model led to the fact that a total percentage of the explained variance was 24% (table 1).
In the group of 11-year-old girls, the result of the shuttle run test accounted for as much as 38% of the variance of the dependent variable. However, adding the Spalding slalom running test and the test of tapping the discs to the model resulted in a statistically significant increase in the percentage of the explained variance (by 8% and 4%) to the level of 47% of variations explained by the developed model that consisted of three such predictors. It is worth noting that they are all negatively correlated with the dependent variable. The lower the scores in the test of tapping the discs, the Spalding sla-
Table 1. Results of the linear regression analysis in the groups of 9- and 11-year-old female tennis players
that aimed to find coordination predictors of high-level technical skills (the test of 100 balls)
B SE ß R2 AR2 Fchanges P changes
model 1
(Constant) -106.64 58.51 0.19 0.19 13.62 <0.001
Simple reaction test 4.47 1.21 0.44***
9 yrs model 2
(Constant) -45.51 61.72
Simple reaction test 4.78 1.17 0.47*** 0.24 0.07 5.78 0.019
Jumps in hexagon -4.75 1.98 -0.27*
model 1
(Constant) 522.08 59.81 0.38 0.38 36.24 <0.001
Shuttle run test 5 x 8.23m -26.34 4.38 -0 62***
model 2
(Constant) 586.92 60.91 0.44 0.08 8.07 0.006
11 yrs Shuttle run test 5 x 8.23m -17.58 5.16 -0.41**
Spalding slalom running test -16.55 5.82 -0.34**
model 3
(Constant) 622.21 61.90
Tapping the discs -3.04 1.52 -0.19* 0.47 0.04 4.03 0.050
Shuttle run test 5 x 8.23m -16.40 5.06 -0.39**
Spalding slalom running test -15.59 5.70 -0.32*
* - p < 0.05; ** - p < 0.01; *** - p < 0.001
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Theory and Practice of Physical Culture I teoriya.ru I January № 1 2021
lom running test and the shuttle run test, the better the scores in the test of 100 balls in this age group. Conclusion. _The effectiveness of performing the test of 100 balls depends on different predictors of coordination motor abilities. It is noteworthy that in the group of 9-year-old female tennis players, 19% of the variance is explained by the test of simple reaction (predictor), and 24% - by the test of simple reaction and jumps in the hexagon. In turn, in the group of 11-year-old female tennis players, the predictors explaining the variance were as follows: the shuttle run test (38%), the shuttle run test and the Spalding slalom running test (44%), the shuttle run test and tapping the discs (47%). The findings confirm the significance of the selected tests and their prognostic value.
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