Medical reasons behind player departures from male and female professional tennis competitions

Abstract

Background: The number of retirements, withdrawals, and "lucky losers" (the replacement of a player who withdraws before the start of the tournament by a losing player from the qualifying round) from professional tennis tournaments has increased, but the reasons behind such departures have not yet been analyzed. An official consensus statement has been conducted to allow a general categorization of injuries in tennis.

Purpose: To determine the reasons for departure and injury rates in professional tennis.

Study design: Descriptive epidemiology study.

Methods: All reasons for departures were collected from official Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA) web pages. All tournaments apart from the 4 major competitions (the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open) were included for the period 2001-2012 for men and women. Personal data, tournament information, surface, match setting, date, and reason were obtained for each departure scenario.

Results: Variations in departure and injury rates were seen throughout the season. Women left and were injured significantly more than men. Women mainly left because of thigh injuries, whereas men left mainly because of back injuries. Playing surface only had an influence on the risk of lower back injuries. Only women's departures were affected by the tournament round.

Conclusion: A high number of departures from tournaments have occurred during the past 10 years on the ATP and WTA circuits. Injuries were the main reasons of these departures, regardless of the type of departure and player sex. The back and thigh were the main locations of injuries for men and women, respectively.

Keywords: epidemiology; injury; professional players; tennis.