Background Research

Often, you can find survey or "classic" papers which encompass the history of known research. For example, Dr. Jack Groppel's paper "Biomechanics in Tennis" is a survey paper. It presents an overview and the major conclusions of many different investigator's work conducted in tennis physics and player biomechanics. "Classic" papers are the original or recognized authoritative source on the subject. Typically, other researchers will mention or reference these classic papers in their own works. Lord Raleigh's "The Irregular Flight of the Tennis Ball" published in 1863, would be considered a classic paper. So even if you just focus on the last few years of research you will generally find bibliography references to the "classics".

What's a bibliography? It's a list of the articles, journals, books and other resources that were used to create a work.

The game of tennis has changed a great deal in the last 10-15 year, so additionally we wanted to be sure not to use outdated results.

We found information on ball spin in another paper of Jack Groppel's. Ball speed, bounce and information on a few court surfaces were discussed in Professor Howard Brody's book, "Tennis Science for Tennis Players". We found one good paper on a tennis ball wind tunnel experiment and absolutely nothing on CFD simulations for a ball. We were confident that we would be the first to conduct that type of simulation.

A review of the literature shows however that there has been no comprehensive attempt to study these subjects among the top players. Furthermore, although previous high speed filming techniques have yielded information about ball spin and the strokes elite players below the pro level, the limitations and the costs of these techniques makes them inapplicable for use in our project in an actual tournament environment. Other work concerning spin is based on computer simulations rather than actual data from real match play. Much of the research has been on rackets and strings and their interaction in producing more or less speed, and on other areas that don't bear directly on our project.

One of the main limitations to current research is that it is highly academic in nature, filled with mathematics and academic language that make the conclusions difficult for the average student or tennis player to understand.