ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Sport and Exercise Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1608893
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Dietary Supplements: Enhancing Sport Performance and RecoveryView all 4 articles
Effects of isolated or combined carbohydrate and caffeine supplementation on tennis training performance: Single-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Crossover Session
Provisionally accepted
Mekki Abdioglu1
Ahmet Mor2
Dan Iulian Alexe3,4*
Raul Marian Todor5*
Elena Adelina Panaet4
Firat Akca1
Cristina Ioana Alexe4- 1Ankara University, Ankara, Ankara, Türkiye
- 2Faculty of Sport Sciences, Sinop University, Sinop, Sinop, Türkiye
- 3Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy, “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau,, Bacau, Romania
- 4University of Bacău, Bacău, Romania
- 5Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Sibiu, Sibiu, Romania
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IIn long tennis matches, the number of unforced errors in groundstrokes increases. However, players need to maintain their successful strokes consistently in order to be successful in matches. To overcome this situation, tennis players utilize certain ergogenic supplements. In order to determine the most effective ergogenic supplement on players' performance, it is aimed to investigate the effects of caffeinated chewing gum (CAFGUM), carbohydrate gel (CHOGEL) and cho gel + cafe gum (CHOGEL + CAFGUM) on tennis players' basic strokes, countermovement jumps (CMJ), heart rate (HR), ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and gastrointestinal discomfort in a training session. The study included 14 male tennis players (mean age: 15.93 ± 0.83 years, height: 173.86 ± 6.89 cm, and body mass: 60.64 ± 2.58 kg) with experience in national and international tournaments. Players ingested CHOGEL (21.1 g) + CAFGUM (100 mg) or CHOGEL (21.1 g) + gum placebo (PLAGUM) or CAFGUM (100 mg) or PLAGUM before a high-intensity workout and at the end of each set. The CHOGEL + CAFGUM session performed better groundstrokes than the control (CON) (p = 0.001) and the PLAGUM sessions (p = 0.001). When total RPE values were considered in the training session, the CHOGEL + CAFGUM session had lower RPE scores than the CON (p = 0.010) and PLAGUM (p = 0.044) sessions. The CHOGEL + PLAGUM session had significantly lower RPE scores than the CON (p = 0.005) and PLAGUM (p = 0.005) sessions. The CAFGUM session had significantly lower RPE scores than the CON (p = 0.013). It was observed that no supplements significantly affected either HR (p = 0.188) or CMJ (p = 0.349) scores. In conclusion, there was a significant difference on basic strokes and RPE scores between CHOGEL + CAFGUM supplementation used before and during training compared with the control session. At the same time, there was no significant performance outcomes between CHOGEL and CAFGUM sessions
Keywords: groundstrokes, ergogenic aids, Tennis, performance, training
Received: 09 Apr 2025; Accepted: 27 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Abdioglu, Mor, Alexe, Todor, Adelina Panaet, Akca and Alexe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Dan Iulian Alexe, Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy, “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau,, Bacau, Romania
Raul Marian Todor, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Sibiu, 550024, Sibiu, Romania
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