Effects of low-volume court-based sprint interval training on anaerobic capacity and sport-specific performance in competitive tennis players

Sprint interval training (SIT) is a potent exercise strategy to enhance athletes' anaerobic capacity in a time-efficient manner. This study aimed to investigate the impact of low-volume, court-based SIT on the anaerobic capacity and sport-specific performance in competitive tennis players. Twenty-four competitive collegiate tennis players were randomly assigned to either the SIT group (n = 12; three sessions per week of court-based repeated-sprint training) or the traditional endurance training (ET) group (n = 12; three sessions per week of 45-min continuous treadmill running, n = 12) for a 6-weeks intervention. Baseline and post-intervention assessments included the Wingate Anaerobic Test, elimination rate of blood lactate (BLAer), tennis-specific repeated sprint ability (RSA), and the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 2 (YoYo-IR2). The results showed that SIT group demonstrated significant improvements in peak and average power during the Wingate test (p = 0.07; p < 0.001), along with a notable increase in YoYo-IR2 performance (7.8% increase, p = 0.04). Significant decreases were observed in both mean (5.1% decrease, p = 0.02) and sum RSA time (5.2% decrease, p = 0.02) in the tennis-specific RSA assessments. Additionally, the SIT group showed significantly higher effective training time and TRIMP in the 90-100% HRmax zone compared to the ET group (p < 0.01). This study underscores the potential benefits of low-volume, court-based SIT in enhancing anaerobic capacity and sport-specific performance in competitive tennis players, in comparison to traditional ET.