AUTHOR=Musa Rabiu Muazu , Hassan Isyaku , Abdullah Mohamad Razali , Latiff Azmi Mohd Nazri , Abdul Majeed Anwar P. P. , Abu Osman Noor Azuan 

TITLE=A longitudinal analysis of injury characteristics among elite and amateur tennis players at different tournaments from electronic newspaper reports

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.835119

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.835119

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=The non-complexity of tennis, coupled with its health benefits, renders it appealing and encourages varying competitions at different levels of age, gender, and expertise. However, the rapid increase in the participation rates witnesses a surge in injury occurrences prompting the need for in-depth analysis to facilitate immediate intervention. We employed a media content analysis technique in which tennis-associated articles published in the last five years was examined. A total of 207 news reports were gathered and screened for inclusion or exclusion from the study. Subsequently, 71 articles were excluded from the study due to content duplications or summary updates of existing news articles while 23 news articles were also excluded from the study due to inappropriateness. Finally, 113 news reports directly related to injury in tennis were coded and analyzed.  We examined various types of injuries reported from the screened articles with respect to their status (fresh, recurrent, and recovery) across expertise levels i.e., elite, or amateur. Similarly, the incidence of injury occurrences based on the types of tournaments the players engage in was also investigated.  A chi-square analysis was employed to achieve the objectives of the study. It is shown from the chi-square analysis that occurrences of tennis-associated injuries are disseminated across expertise levels [χ2(18) = 16.542; p = 0.555], with the knee, hip, elbow, and shoulder being highly prevalent in both elite and amateur players. Nevertheless, it was noted that the elite players suffered a staggering 72.60% of injury-related problems, while the amateur players sustained 27.40%. Conversely, the injury status is distributed amongst tournament types [χ2(4) = 3.374; p = 0.497], with fresh injuries dominating, followed by recurrent injuries, while recovery rates were found to be the lowest. It was demonstrated that the injury types are sustained regardless of the types of the tournament involved [χ2(36) = 39.393; p = 0.321]. However, most of the injuries occurred at international tournaments 85%, while only 5.30% occurred at national/regional tournaments with 9.70% unidentified.