The Tracing Of Talent Identification In Tennis And The Characteristics Of Morphology And Fitness Changes During Early Specializaiton

The purpose of this article was firstly to discuss the approach of talent identification in youth women tennis player, analysis the relationship between morphology, physical ability and match performance, secondly present pilot data on a more longitudinal way for youth tennis players to outline the important characteristics of tennis athletes in the transition from youth to junior.Methodology:The researchers traced 8 young tennis players for 3 years from Jan 2011 to Dec 2013. We periodically tested morphology indexes including height, weight, body fat rate, physical fitness indexes including agility, reaction, speed, strength, flexibility, endurance and also periodically traced the tests which were used in their talent identification selection camp, the correlation between those results and their match performance was analyzed with Spearman Correlation and the characteristics of their morphology and physical changes were analyzed using One-Way ANOVA through SPSS, the results revealed that:1. The morphological indexes including height, weight and Curletto index present a significant yet stable correlation with match performance from Jan.2011 to Dec.2013. (8 years old to 11 years old), which set a reasonable reference in early talent identification.2. The correlation coefficient between physical fitness and match performance are fluctuating during the 3 years and did not show a significant correlation with match performance, which suggest in the early stage, the reliability of using physical ability as an indicator for later performance is quit limited; as a consequence it might be the reason for dropout and early burn out.3. In the aspect of the characteristics of morphological development, the height and weight significantly increased during the three tracing years, among which the peak velocity growth of weight is later than height, Curletto index changes along with the age and gradually increases, and the change trend is in accordance with weight; Body fat rate is in no consistent with normal students, it grows significantly after the first selection test, then it declines until puberty.4. The physical ability changes in accordance with body size, the athletes have a good adaptation to the training volume with 1100h per year. The physical ability including reaction speed, agility, grip strength, specific speed and endurance significantly grew from 8 to 9 years old. While in the second year, only agility significantly grew. The flexibility did not show significant change in the three years tracing.