The relationship between physical variables at age 12 and tennis performance at U12 and U16: An analysis of 10 years of data collected in a talent identification and development program.

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Dataset which includes analysis script in R for study: "The relationship between physical variables at age 12 and tennis performance at U12 and U16: An analysis of 10 years of data collected in a talent identification and development program." by Rikken et al. Abstract: Talent identification systems aim to identify and develop athletes with potential for future elite performance, yet predicting long-term sport success remains challenging. This study examined whether physical performance variables at age 12 function as determinants of concurrent tennis performance as well as predictors of future performance at age 16. Data were collected by the Royal Dutch Lawn Tennis Association during periodic testing days between 2014 and 2025. In total, 303 youth tennis players were analyzed (177 males, 126 females); the future-performance subsample included 185 players (112 male, 73 female) with U16 national ratings. Analyses included correlation, ordinary least squares regression and ridge-penalized regression with cross validation. Results showed that most physical variables were associated with concurrent performance. In male players, several of these associations were also observed for future performance, whereas no significant relationships were found for female players. Predictive performance declined substantially from concurrent to future performance, particularly in female players. The findings suggest that physical determinants may be useful for profiling current performance and identifying individual developmental needs, but physical predictors have limited value as a stand-alone tool for long-term talent identification due to the limited relation with future performance, particularly for female players.

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