Eye Dominance in Tennis Serve

This study investigates the shoulder loading position as a part of the preparation phase. The shoulder loading position was considered in order to obtain good reliability in the measurement of the current serve study. Certain traits like the personal hand-eye coordination preference supposedly may play a role for an impeccable serve motion, however, the gap of knowledge about the shoulder loading positions and the association with manually influenced eye dominance is evident.

Manually influenced eye dominance seems to be important to analyse the shoulder loading position in the tennis serve. Thirty-one right-handed healthy tennis players underwent shoulder loading position evaluation recorded with an eight-camera VICON system. The current study evaluated open and closed shoulder loading positions in comparison with previously presented results on crossed and consistent manually influenced eye dominance. The shoulder loading positions were defined as closed (≥90°) or open (<90°) in relation to the baseline. Firstly, the most common shoulder loading position, closed or open was evaluated. Secondly, whether the most common shoulder loading position is encountered more frequently with crossed respectively consistent manually influenced eye dominance classification.