The transfer of skill from short tennis to lawn tennis

The purpose of this study was to establish if short tennis skills transferred to lawn tennis. The experiment was conducted in two parts. In the first experiment 16 children (average age 8-9 years) were coached for 20 h (2h/day for 2 weeks). The experimental group (n = 8) received 10 h of short tennis coaching followed by 10 h of tennis coaching. The control group (n = 8) received tennis coaching only. In the second experiment 14 children (average age 8-5 years) were coached for 8h in ground strokes alone (only ground strokes were tested and analysed). The experimental group (n = 7) received 4h of short tennis coaching and 4 h of tennis coaching; the control group (w = 7) received tennis coaching only. Prior to coaching, all children were tested on the Dyer Backboard Test. The tests were video-taped for later analysis of technique. The video was analysed by three coaches in terms of backswing, positioning (position where player stood in reference to the bounce of the ball), follow-through, and placement (accuracy with which the ball was hit). The experimental group improved more than the control group on the Dyer Backboard Test (p 0.05) between the two groups following coaching. This implied that the short tennis skills positively transferred to tennis. Results from ANOVA suggested that the control group was better at positioning (p < 0-05) and placement in Experiment 1 and that the experimental group was better at backswing (p < 0-05), follow-through (p < 0.05), and placement (p < 0-05) in Experiment 2. These results support the hypothesis that short tennis accelerates the acquisition of skills required to play tennis. The control group was better at positioning. This was possibly attributable to greater experience of tennis ball bounce characteristics. The placement was better by the control group in Experiment 1; this might be the result of superior positioning. It was concluded that the learning of short tennis skills positively transfers to tennis skills and it seems, therefore, beneficial for children to learn short tennis prior to learning tennis.