Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of physical function training (PFT) on the improvement of tennis players' baseline movement stroke ability and to verify the effectiveness of PFT. METHOD: Using a randomized controlled design, 32 national level 2 and above athletes (16 males and 16 females) from the tennis team of Chengdu Sport University were selected and randomly divided into an experimental group (EG; n = 16) and a control group (CG; n = 16). The EG received 12 weeks of physical training intervention, three times a week for 60 min each time. The CG underwent routine training on tennis balls. Before and after training, functional movement screens (FMSs), specialized physical fitness tests (including 100 m sprint run, standing long jump, fan run, backhand lateral movement, and forehand lateral movement), and baseline movement stroke effect tests (hitting frequency, hitting depth, and hitting accuracy) were conducted on both groups of athletes. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and Microsoft Excel software. Paired samples t-test and independent samples t-test were used to compare the differences between the two groups of athletes and to determine significant differences between the data based on p-values. RESULTS: According to the FMS test findings, the EG's athletes significantly improved their functional movement capacity on all test items following training (p < 0.05), but the CG did not significantly alter. In the specialized physical fitness test, the EG showed significant training effects in standing long jump, fan run, backhand lateral movement, and forehand lateral movement (p < 0.05). The CG displayed no significant training effect. The baseline movement stroke effect test showed that the EG athletes significantly increased the number of baseline forehand movement hitting, baseline backhand movement strokes, and baseline one forehand and one backhand movement strokes after training (p < 0.05). The depth and accuracy of the stroke also increased significantly (p < 0.05). However, although the number of strokes increased in the CG athletes, the improvement in depth of stroke and accuracy was not significant (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The 12-week physical training intervention can significantly improve the functional movement quality, specialized movement efficiency, and baseline hitting performance of college tennis players. This provides evidence-based training programs for improving baseline hitting ability.