Sandi Prayudho, Ahmad Nasrulloh, Widiyanto
Studies of tennis injuries have identified the incidence rate, location and type of injury. Most studies have many perspectives on epidemiology, biomechanics and performance, but few studies have identified the risk factors for injury. Until now, there has been no systematic literature review identifying risk factors for tennis service injuries, especially in junior players. Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify and critically assess the evidence relating to risk factors for tennis service injuries, particularly in junior players. Materials and methods: The systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. Articles were searched using Google Scholar, PubMed and Scopus. Results: The results of 9 selected articles revealed risk factors for tennis service injuries in junior players, namely, age and gender, weak muscles or muscle imbalances, racket use, grip on racket grips (hand grip), service technique, previous injury history, duration of training, overuse, and kinetic chains. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the risk factors for tennis service injuries in junior players are age and gender, weak muscles or muscle imbalances, racket use, grip on racket grips (hand grip), service techniques, previous injury history, duration of training, overuse, and kinetic chains. The study was unable to identify most of the studies that met the criteria, and this was not due to restrictions, but because of poor study quality or no studies addressing the issue. Despite all the risk factors, tennis requires validated workload monitoring methods to examine workload behaviour during practice and matches and to identify potential injury associations. The need for more epidemiological studies of different age and performance groups of players and different skill levels is strongly encouraged and more research is needed to examine the mechanisms behind tennis injuries. Finally, identifying risk factors for service injuries in junior players can be beneficial to doctors, sports scientists and coaches to design exercise strategies and programmes for effective injury prevention, and it can improve performance. © 2023, Drustvo Pedagoga Tjelesne i Zdravstvene Kulture. All rights reserved.
Faculty of Sport and Health Science, State University of Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Sport Department, Sports Science Faculty, Yogyakarta State University, Karangmalang, Yogyakar-ta, Indonesia
