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. 2025 Apr 25;17(1):95.
doi: 10.1186/s13102-025-01150-1.

Epidemiology of injuries in racket sports: a cross-sectional study of specific injuries within one olympic cycle

Christophe Lambert #  1   2 , Marc Banerjee #  3   4 , Ramona Ritzmann  5 , Daniel Lachmann  3   5   6   7   8   9   10   4   11 , Bernd Wolfarth  7 , Casper Grim  11 , Sven Shafizadeh  8 , Markus Geßlein  9 , Nicholas Peters  10 , Noémie Reinert  6
Affiliations

Epidemiology of injuries in racket sports: a cross-sectional study of specific injuries within one olympic cycle

Christophe Lambert et al. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. .

Abstract

Objective: Despite the growing interest in racket sports, injury prevalence, circumstances and severity as a function of gender, performance level and return to play have not been investigated to date. The aim was therefore to evaluate the occurrence of sport-specific injuries from a quantitative and qualitative perspective in the Olympic disciplines Tennis, Badminton and Table Tennis.

Methods: Injury characteristics were recorded using a three-part questionnaire with 139 items, which was distributed through an online link. Racket sport-specific injuries and frequencies were assessed according to gender and performance level in one Olympic cycle (from the Olympic Games in London in 2012 until Rio de Janeiro in 2016). The Injury severity was recorded by time loss and performance reduction.

Results: A total of 390 (55%) athletes have suffered a serious injury. There were more injuries during training than competition. 78% of the three most common injuries in the various racket sports involved the lower extremities. The longest injury time loss was seen in Tennis for an unspecified injury of the shoulder (16±12 weeks), in Badminton for the foot-ligament injury (13±14 weeks) and the meniscus injury of the knee in table tennis (13±10 weeks). The injuries to the knee accounted for the highest number of athletes with a reduced level of performance (Badminton: Knee - unspecified injury: reduced level=64%; Table tennis: Knee - meniscus injury: reduced level=54%) CONCLUSION: Although recognized as one entity of racket sports with some similar trends in terms of injuries, there are some relevant differences in injury type, circumstances and consequences, which should be considered in future sport-specific injury prevention strategies.

Keywords: Ankle; Athletes; Cartilage; Down time; Elite; Extremities; Injuries; Muscle; Olympic; Performance reduction; Shoulder.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Participants provided informed consent, and the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Witten/Herdecke. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Injury prevalence illustrated as a distribution regarding training and competition distinguished by racket sports in Tennis, Badminton and Table Tennis. Note that the onset of unspecific shoulder injuries could not be attributed to training and competition as the chronic injury type is not associated to s specific origin
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Downtime after injury for the different racket sports
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Rates of athletes that experienced a significant and persistent loss of performance after the injury in racket sports
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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