Players’ On-Court Movements and Contextual Variables in Badminton World Championship

摘要

This study aimed to analyse elite badminton players’ on-court movements related to contextual variables (set, round and match status). A total of 18 matches of Jakarta 2015 World Championship (1,273 points and 5,710 play actions) were examined by univariate and bivariate analyses. Significant differences were found when comparing players’ on-court movements related to set, round and match status (p0.05). All movements were executed more frequently in set 2 with the exception of Diagonal Large Backward Left, Diagonal Short Backward Left, Diagonal Short Backward Right and Longitudinal Short Backward. Results obtained related to the round showed that Longitudinal Large Backward was the most frequent footwork in R1/16 and R1/2, Diagonal Short Forward Left was the most frequent one for R1/4 and Transversal Short Right was the most used movement for the Final round. According to match status, No Movement was the most common situation before hitting the shuttlecock, at any moment during the match. This study shows how contextual variables modulate elite players’ on-court movements. This information could be valuable for coaches and players allowing them to better understand players’ behaviour in competition, which could be used to design more specific training tasks and prepare match strategies, in order to improve players’ performance in competition.