A Tennis Players Injury Fact Sheet-

Acute injuries are most likely to happen on the lower extremities – Lower back downwards

Most common area being ankle and thigh

Chronic injuries are most likely to happen to the upper extremities- Wrist to the lower back

Most common being elbow and shoulder.

Novice players were most likely to injure their wrist than elbow during play as they are found to use a flicking motion when completing a back hand stroke. This repeated flicking motion is an example of an eccentric muscle contraction which would over time cause mico trauma to the muscle.

On the other hand professional players were found to be more likely to injure the medial side of their elbow most commonly known as golfers elbow. This is also down to technique, especially with snapping of the serve and forehand shots.

Lower Extremities

Lower back pain was found to be quite common with tennis players. The first most likely reason for this was due to the pivoting of the body coupled with the serving action. The second reason being that a tennis match can go on for an undetermined amount of time meaning the serving action needs to be repeated over a period of hours with as little drop in performance as possible.

One study found that when surveyed 38% of 143 professional tennis players had missed tournaments due to a bad back.

Ankle sprains have been found to be the most common acute injury. The sprain was due to excessive inversion- supportive braces and taping have been found to be helpful. Taping is not as preferred as it loses 50% of its effectiveness within 20 minutes of application. Therefore authors of the paper recommend a proprioception exercise regime.

An example of a few easy proprioception exercises of the ankle follow below. They even start as using a pillow or a cushion as an uneven surface! That’s how simple the exercises cant be to help proprioception.

Thanks to the Ringwood Clinic for the diagrams.

For a more in depth look into all of the above please have a look at the below journal!

Dines, J. S., Bedi, A., Williams, P. N., Dodson, C. C., Ellenbecker, T. S., Altchek, D. W., ... & Dines, D. M. (2015). Tennis injuries: epidemiology, pathophysiology, and treatment. Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 23(3), 181-189.

Lastly hope you all had a good Easter and have had good long bank holiday!!!