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Five-year monitoring trends in physical performance among junior tennis players
Rita Géczi1, László Tóth2,3,4
1School of Doctoral Studies, Hungarian University of Sports Science, Budapest, Hungary.
Background:
Athlete monitoring is considered an important component of youth athlete development and talent pathway management; however, ecologically valid longitudinal evidence within national tennis development systems remains limited.
Purpose:
Therefore, the present study examined temporal trends in physical performance among junior tennis players within a national talent development system.
Methods:
This retrospective repeated-measures monitoring study included 127 testing observations from 67 junior tennis players collected between 2021 and 2025. The testing battery assessed sprint speed, multidirectional movement, lower- and upper-body power, flexibility, and muscular endurance. Linear mixed-effects models were conducted for each performance variable, with testing year, chronological age, and sex included as fixed effects and athlete ID as a random intercept. Sensitivity analyses were performed using a repeated-athlete subsample and by including national ranking position as an additional covariate.
Results:
Significant year effects were observed for sprint performance and plank endurance. Sprint performance was fastest in 2021 and significantly slower in 2025, with similar findings in sensitivity analyses. The sprint difference between 2021 and 2025 (∼0.24 s) suggests a potentially meaningful difference in performance; however, its practical significance within junior tennis remains to be determined. Standing long jump and flexibility did not demonstrate statistically significant year effects, although both variables approached statistical significance. In contrast, multidirectional movement, push-up performance, and medicine ball throw performance remained relatively stable across testing years.
Conclusions:
Physical performance trends in junior tennis appeared to be non-linear and capacity-specific rather than uniform across performance domains. These findings highlight the value of multi-year monitoring within national talent development systems for identifying developmental variability and informing individualized and maturation-sensitive athlete development strategies in junior tennis.
