Do hard courts shorten pro tennis players careers?

NewsBot · Sep 14, 2012

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Do hard courts shorten pro tennis players’ careers?

Andy Murray won his first Grand Slam tournament Monday night on the hard courts at Flushing Meadows. As were most fans, I was happy Murray finally ascended to the top of his sport. I couldn’t help wondering, though, if a healthy Rafael Nadal would have stopped him. Long hampered by a chronic patellar tendon injury, Nadal elected to skip the two grueling weeks on the Arthur Ashe Stadium hard courts and try to rehab his ailing knee.

It led me to ponder a bigger question though. Do those hard courts shorten the careers of professional players like Nadal?
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Mark Russell · Sep 14, 2012

Re: Do hard courts shorten pro tennis players’ careers?

Possibly. I'm not one for playing with balls - much prefer the cock.....or rather shuttlecock! Have played badminton at a fairly high level - county juniors and seniors - and still manage to work up a decent sweat on court most weeks and from my experience, playing on sprung wooden floors is infinitely preferable to playing on solid floors- even with mats down. If I have to play on the latter, I usually take 400mgs ibuprofen before and after a match - and even then I have difficulty next morning with knees and back, whereas on a sprung floor, next morning, I'm just my usual magnificent self! Solid floors and high impact sports just don't bode well for the old bones and clubs that play regularly on these surfaces tend to have a higher number of injuries in their teams than those who have a sprung floor.

Friends who play with their balls usually say the same about grass-v-clay and all-weather...

Griff · Sep 14, 2012

Re: Do hard courts shorten pro tennis players’ careers?

On reading some of the writing on he subject of leg stiffness from Farley, Ferris, Spooner etc, one could say that Rafa's patella tendon pathology is easily explained:

Hard court (surface) = CNS driven response in increasing leg compliance (one mechanism being increased knee flexion)
Increased leg compliance = thought to increase risk or likelihood of soft tissue injury (such as tendinopathies)

Bruce Williams · Sep 14, 2012

Re: Do hard courts shorten pro tennis players’ careers?

Ian G said: ↑

On reading some of the writing on he subject of leg stiffness from Farley, Ferris, Spooner etc, one could say that Rafa's patella tendon pathology is easily explained:

Hard court (surface) = CNS driven response in increasing leg compliance (one mechanism being increased knee flexion)
Increased leg compliance = thought to increase risk or likelihood of soft tissue injury (such as tendinopathies)
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There are also mechanical reasons for the same response. Those can be identified, quantified and treated fairly easily.

How exactly do you identify, quantify and treat a so-called CNS driven response?

Bruce

NewsBot · Dec 30, 2015

The influence of tennis court surfaces on player perceptions and biomechanical response
Chelsea Starbuck et al
Journal of Sports Sciences; in press

This study aimed to examine player perceptions and biomechanical responses to tennis surfaces and to evaluate the influence of prior clay court experience. Two groups with different clay experiences (experience group, n = 5 and low-experience group, n = 5) performed a 180? turning movement. Three-dimensional ankle and knee movements (50 Hz), plantar pressure of the turning step (100 Hz) and perception data (visual analogue scale questionnaire) were collected for two tennis courts (acrylic and clay). Greater initial knee flexion (acrylic 20. 8 ? 11.2? and clay 32.5 ? 9.4?) and a more upright position were reported on the clay compared to the acrylic court (P < 0.05). This suggests adaptations to increase player stability on clay. Greater hallux pressures and lower midfoot pressures were observed on the clay court, allowing for sliding whilst providing grip at the forefoot. Players with prior clay court experience exhibited later peak knee flexion compared to those with low experience. All participants perceived the differences in surface properties between courts and thus responded appropriately to these differences. The level of previous clay court experience did not influence players’ perceptions of the surfaces; however, those with greater clay court experience may reduce injury risk as a result of reduced loading through later peak knee flexion.
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NewsBot · Jan 11, 2016

Tennis injury data from The Championships, Wimbledon, from 2003 to 2012
I McCurdie et al
Br J Sports Med doi:10.1136/bjsports-2015-095552

Objective The primary aims of this retrospective study were to describe the burden of injury presenting to the medical team and the changes in injury profile over 10 years (2003–2012) at The Championships, Wimbledon. Secondary aims included description of gender difference in rates, distribution and pathology of injuries.

Design Retrospective observational cohort of player injury presentations over 10 years (2003–2012) at The Championships, Wimbledon.

Results The overall rate of presentation of injury for all players over the 10-year period was 20.7 per 1000 sets played. Injury rates were lower for male players (17.7 injuries per 1000 sets played) than female players (23.4 injuries per 1000 sets played). There was variability in the numbers of injuries reported by men and women players over the 10-year period.

Conclusions The rates of presentation of injury at this Grand Slam tennis tournament varied between male and female players, and between years. More robust systems of data collection are required in professional tennis to enable more sophisticated injury data analysis between sexes, years and different playing surfaces.
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fishpod · Jan 12, 2016

read a study from staffs uni that netball players had more injuries on hard courts than sprung courts. so probably in tennis aswell.

NewsBot · May 17, 2016

Editorial
It's not the destination, it's the ‘road to load’ that matters: a tennis injury prevention perspective
Dr Babette M Pluim
Br J Sports Med 2016;50:641-642

Consistent training is conducive to reaching performance goals in sport and essential for optimal performance. A study in athletics has shown that the likelihood of achieving a performance goal was seven times higher in those athletes who completed >80% of their planned training weeks and that training availability accounted for 86% of successful seasons.1 This means that the goals of the coaches and strength/conditioning experts and the sports medicine/physiotherapy team are not distinct entities but rather complementary, with the clinical team trying to avoid failure and the coaches improving the chance of success.

How do we keep our athletes injury-free? There is the perception that higher training loads inevitably result in higher injury rates in athletes. Although it is true that high absolute training loads are associated with greater injury risk, there is also evidence that training may have a protective effect and that undertraining increases injury risk.2

The new ‘train smart AND hard’ paradigm3 suggests that it is not so much the load itself, but an inappropriate transition to …
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NewsBot · Sep 5, 2016

Biomechanical responses to changes in friction on a clay court surface
Chelsea Starbuck et al
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport; 1 September 2016

Objectives
To examine the influence of clay court frictional properties on tennis players? biomechanical response.

Design
Repeated measures.

Methods
Lower limb kinematic and force data were collected on sixteen university tennis players during 10 ? 180? turns (running approach speed 3.9 ? 0.20 m.s−1) on a synthetic clay surface of varying friction levels. To adjust friction levels the volume of sand infill above the force plate was altered (kg per m2 surface area; 12, 16 and 20 kg.m−2). Repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni?s corrected alpha post-hoc analyses were conducted to identify significant differences in lower limb biomechanics between friction levels.

Results
Greater sliding distances (View the MathML source = 0.355, p = 0.008) were observed for the lowest friction condition (20 kg.m−2) compared to the 12 and 16 kg.m−2 conditions. No differences in ankle joint kinematics and knee flexion angles were observed. Later peak knee flexion occurred on the 20 kg.m−2 condition compared to the 12 kg.m−2 (View the MathML source = 0.270, p = 0.023). Lower vertical (View the MathML source = 0.345, p = 0.027) and shear (View the MathML source = 0.396, p = 0.016) loading rates occurred for the 20 kg.m2 condition compared to the 16 kg.m2.

Conclusions
Lower loading rates and greater sliding distances when clay surface friction was reduced suggests load was more evenly distributed over time reducing players? injury risks. The greater sliding distances reported were accompanied with later occurrence of peak knee flexion, suggesting longer time spent braking and a greater requirement for muscular control increasing the likelihood of fatigue.
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NewsBot · Feb 16, 2017

Injury rates in recreational tennis players do not differ between different playing surfaces
Babette M Pluim, Benjamin Clarsen, Evert Verhagen
BJSM

Objective The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in the prevalence of tennis injuries between the four most common court surfaces in the Netherlands, including hard court, clay, sand-fill artificial grass and red-sand-fill artificial grass. Natural grass was not included in this study.

Methods This was a repeated cross-sectional study over 6 months, involving members of the Royal Netherlands Lawn Tennis Association (KNLTB). A monthly questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 20 000 KNLTB members, stratified by their club’s playing surface. The questionnaire included questions on court surface, tennis exposure and physical complaints, using the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre questionnaire on health problems.

Results A total of 3656 (18%) of the 20 000 invited members completed at least one of the monthly questionnaires [mean age 49 years (15)]. A total of 4047 injuries were reported by 1957 respondents. Of these injuries, 3246 (80%) were overuse and 801 (20%) were acute. There were no statistically significant differences in injury prevalence between groups who played primarily on any one of the four court surfaces. However, players who played on multiple surfaces had a higher injury prevalence, particularly of overuse injuries, than those who primarily played on one court surface. Compared with the other court surfaces, there was a higher prevalence of lower limb overuse injuries when playing on hard court.

Conclusion There is no significant difference in the overall prevalence of injury on clay, hard court, sand-fill artificial grass and red-sand-fill artificial grass.
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NewsBot · May 4, 2017

The influence of tennis court surfaces on player perceptions and biomechanical response.
Starbuck C et al
J Sports Sci. 2016 Sep;34(17):1627-36. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2015.112798

This study aimed to examine player perceptions and biomechanical responses to tennis surfaces and to evaluate the influence of prior clay court experience. Two groups with different clay experiences (experience group, n = 5 and low-experience group, n = 5) performed a 180° turning movement. Three-dimensional ankle and knee movements (50 Hz), plantar pressure of the turning step (100 Hz) and perception data (visual analogue scale questionnaire) were collected for two tennis courts (acrylic and clay). Greater initial knee flexion (acrylic 20. 8 ± 11.2° and clay 32.5 ± 9.4°) and a more upright position were reported on the clay compared to the acrylic court (P < 0.05). This suggests adaptations to increase player stability on clay. Greater hallux pressures and lower midfoot pressures were observed on the clay court, allowing for sliding whilst providing grip at the forefoot. Players with prior clay court experience exhibited later peak knee flexion compared to those with low experience. All participants perceived the differences in surface properties between courts and thus responded appropriately to these differences. The level of previous clay court experience did not influence players' perceptions of the surfaces; however, those with greater clay court experience may reduce injury risk as a result of reduced loading through later peak knee flexion.
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NewsBot · Apr 14, 2018

Injury rates in recreational tennis players do not differ between different playing surfaces
Pluim BM, Clarsen B, Verhagen E
Br J Sports Med 2018;52:611-615.

Objective The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in the prevalence of tennis injuries between the four most common court surfaces in the Netherlands, including hard court, clay, sand-fill artificial grass and red-sand-fill artificial grass. Natural grass was not included in this study.

Methods This was a repeated cross-sectional study over 6 months, involving members of the Royal Netherlands Lawn Tennis Association (KNLTB). A monthly questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 20 000 KNLTB members, stratified by their club’s playing surface. The questionnaire included questions on court surface, tennis exposure and physical complaints, using the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre questionnaire on health problems.

Results A total of 3656 (18%) of the 20 000 invited members completed at least one of the monthly questionnaires [mean age 49 years (15)]. A total of 4047 injuries were reported by 1957 respondents. Of these injuries, 3246 (80%) were overuse and 801 (20%) were acute. There were no statistically significant differences in injury prevalence between groups who played primarily on any one of the four court surfaces. However, players who played on multiple surfaces had a higher injury prevalence, particularly of overuse injuries, than those who primarily played on one court surface. Compared with the other court surfaces, there was a higher prevalence of lower limb overuse injuries when playing on hard court.

Conclusion There is no significant difference in the overall prevalence of injury on clay, hard court, sand-fill artificial grass and red-sand-fill artificial grass.
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