Blink Behaviour, Pupil Diameter, and Technical Performance in Elite Male Table Tennis Players: A Wearable...

Table tennis is a fast interceptive sport that requires continuous visual information processing and precise visuomotor control. Wearable eye tracking may provide objective information about ocular behaviour during sport-specific performance, although evidence on blink behaviour and pupil diameter in elite players remains limited.

This observational cross-sectional study analysed blink-related and pupil-related variables during a standardised table tennis stroke-performance test in 17 elite male players. Participants completed a 56-ball robot-based protocol, consisting of six familiarisation trials followed by 50 analysed forehand topspin strokes. Ocular variables included total blink count, blink frequency, mean blink duration, mean pupil diameter, maximum pupil diameter, and minimum pupil diameter. Technical performance outcomes were stroke accuracy and ball velocity.

Blink frequency showed the strongest positive association with stroke accuracy score (Spearman's ρ = 0.613, 95% CI [0.060, 0.881], p = 0.012), although this association did not remain statistically significant after false discovery rate correction (FDR-adjusted p = 0.115). Total blink count showed a similar association that did not reach statistical significance (ρ = 0.496, p = 0.051). No significant associations were observed between blink-related variables and ball velocity. Pupil-diameter variables were not significantly associated with either stroke accuracy or ball velocity.

Blink-related measures showed the clearest relationship with stroke accuracy, whereas global pupil-diameter measures did not show comparable associations with technical performance. These findings should be interpreted as exploratory and hypothesis-generating and require confirmation in larger samples using time-resolved analyses of ocular behaviour.