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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Characteristics of the return in professional women’s tennis on clay courts

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The number of studies related to notational analysis of the serve has grown in recent years, and this latest research has suggested that: players win more with the serve at younger age groups; with males, there is more variation in direction and more points are won on the forehand than the backhand return; and, women return closer to the net with a flatter trajectory than male counterparts. Despite advances in research there is still little on female tennis, especially on clay courts. In this study, 795 points of female matches at the BBVA Open Valencia 2017 ITF event were analysed. On the first serve, on the left, players use mainly backhands and hit crosscourt, whereas on the right, there were no significant differences in forehands and backhands hit, and there was more variation in direction. On the second serve, on the left, players still mainly used backhands but hit more shots down the line; whereas on the right, players hit mainly inside-out forehands and there were no differences in the direction hit.