Using Video-Based Deliberate Practice Training Techniques To Improve Serve Return Performance And Self-Efficacy In Collegiate Tennis Players

Abstract

Deliberate practice is a theory and a method of expertise development described as the act of practicing a skill in a way that is focused on skill development, repetitious, optimally challenging, and has immediate, correctable feedback (Ericsson, 2016). During this study, the collegiate tennis players in the experimental group engaged with a deliberate practice, video-based perceptual training program designed to help the athletes anticipate and react to the location of a serve. The athletes trained on computers before practice four days per week for four weeks and completed on-court performance testing daily to measure increases to performance. Using both ANCOVA and MANCOVA modeling, group and sex differences in on-court performance in both drill and match scenarios were compared. Despite not having statistical significance, effect sizes showed the experimental and female groups consistently outperform the control and male groups, respectively.