Score Based Analysis Of Chinese Elite Table Tennis Players’ Mental State During Competitions

Up until now, table tennis has developed very well and has formed very excellent skills and tactics. However, due to the violent competition, players probably act unsteadily, sometimes well, sometimes terribly. Also, the opponent’s excellent performance or the mind state of players themselves when competing contributes to the unsteadiness. On one hand, the scores change in line with the mind fluctuation. Scoring in a row or turning defeat into victory in a game means that the player is in a good mental state while a successive loses in scores or turning victory into defeat stands for unsteady mental state of the player. On the other hand, the opponent’s performance will also affect how many a player scores. For how many a player scores in a game can affect the mental state of a player, we can master the relationship between them by analyzing and integrating games as many as possible and take advantage of the relationship for helping us to eliminate negative influence of opponents and thus to win games. The study carried out a comprehensive analysis on score changes in games by adopting cubic spline interpolation function and fitting analysis, directly showing the mental changes of players in real matches. The reasonableness has been confirmed by comparing the true feelings of athletes. And the method is also effective when comparing and analyzing athletes themselves both vertically and horizontally.To disclose the influence of the significance of a game to the mental state of a player, the second study delves into four key players by analyzing their curve fitting of 163 games scoring data in recent three years. The results tells that the more significant a game, the more influence to a player. For those who can bear much mental stress, they usually perform very well in competitions while for those who suffer too much from mental stress, their performance in matches may be terrible.Table tennis has yet developed into a very high degree in China and there has emerged many excellent players. To find out how challenges from foreign top players affect our players’ mental state, the study compared and analyzed the scoring curve fitting based on three top Chinese female players in international competitions with foreign excellent opponents by adopting cubic spline interpolation function and fitting analysis. The results shows that Chinese female players are affected more by the scores in matches than foreign players and there are individually differences in scores, which means our players suffer a lot from competition stress. Thus, it is high time that we should instruct and train players in accordance with the results.Both the start and the end of a table tennis match are very important to observe players’ ability to control their mental state. The fourth and fifth studies carried out researches on six active top table tennis players of China based on data of around 500 international or home matches and 2000 rounds of these games in recent four years. By victory rates of starting scores and ending scores, the study discloses the mental states of players in all these matches, which shows that a good start can contribute a lot to the final victory. The more significant the match is, the harder it is for a player to control his or her mental state. When scores are very close in the ending phase of matches, especially in very significant matches, some players may become very anxious and irritated, which can cause their failures in matches.The studies point out that Chinese top table tennis players differ from each other very much, too. It tells us that individual-oriented training and instructions are vital to players. For example, confronting foreign excellent table tennis players, some players collapsed during the beginning or ending phases of matches due to their mental stress. All these warn that it is high time that we should design training courses aimed at mental stresses in accordance with different features of players.