Anticipatory information sources of serve and returning of elite professional tennis players: A qualitative approach

Abstract

Kinematic and contextual information is important for players as they can use these for anticipation and facilitating motor responses. The interaction of the use of this information with an understanding of how the mind works in elite players is crucial but difficult to obtain by empirical research methods. The aim was to: (i) explore and identify anticipatory information sources among professional tennis players, (ii) verify findings of Vernon et al. ¹ and elaborate on these findings based upon the perspective of European players and coaches. We interviewed 9 active or former professional players (current coaches) for 30–60 min each, replicating the same methodology and questions as Vernon. ¹ An open-coding analysis approach was used, with codes to identify common themes extracted from the transcribed interviews. Our findings were generally in support of Vernon's findings, verifying the importance of ball toss kinematics, contextual information sources such as the score or weather, as well as the importance of constantly updating the available kinematic and contextual information sources throughout the match. We elaborate on these findings by providing more detail regarding Vernon's findings, and add new sources of information mentioned by the interviewed players such as server's rear foot position and server's gaze. Participants shared information about their returning strategies, how they build pressure on the server, and their own service return practice, noting that this is not practiced as much as they would like it to be. Overall, focus on developing and improving visual anticipation skill is limited, even at this level of expertise.