Physical performance characteristics of university male tennis players in division I and II

Abstract

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to examine the physical performance characteristics of Division-I (D-I) and Division-II (D-II) university male tennis players and to evaluate whether these characteristics could be determinative on the divisional differentiation. Material: Twenty athletes who compete in D=I (n=10) and D-II (n=10) of Turkey university tennis league (n=10) and also ranked in top-ten in their division voluntarily participated in this study. Results: Measurement of agility, upper and lower body explosive powers, fatigue index, aerobic and anaerobic powers was conducted on two non-consecutive days. Significant differences were observed in physical performance characteristics powers between the groups (p<0.05). D-I players had significantly greater anaerobic power, agility, vertical jump height, upper and lower body explosive powers, and lower fatigue index level than D-II players. However, aerobic power did not differ between groups. Conclusions: It may be possible that these results allow us to suggest that physical performance characteristics should be regarded as one of the important discriminative factors in determining the competitive level of university male tennis players.