The influence of non-verbal body language on sport performance in professional tennis

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between players´ non-verbal body language and their performance in sport. The sample consists of a total of 477 actions from 40 players competing in the ATP Tour. All actions were taken from tie-breaks in official tournaments. The categories that were analyzed were previous performance, dominant non-verbal body language, submissive non-verbal body language, and performance later on. Results show how the players´ non verbal body language impacts on their performance later on.  Thus, we can conclude that following dominant non-verbal body language, the probabilities of better performance in the next point are greater than following submissive non-verbal body language. Therefore, it is important to train these aspects as an extra tool to improve players´ performance.