Performing in high-pressure situations: the case of tennis players up a break and serving for the set

Brian Goff, Dennis Wilson and David Zimmer

Applied Economics, 2025, vol. 57, issue 39, 6138-6147

Abstract: This study explores the impact of perceived pressure on performance in professional tennis. Contrary to conventional wisdom linking pressure with poorer performance, we analyse over 136,000 tennis game instances (from July 2021–September 2022) to find that both male and female players improve their service hold probabilities under heightened match pressure. While innate player attributes influence service hold likelihoods, the gender-specific variability in performance response to pressure is evident, with female players revealing a greater variance in likelihood.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2024.2381129 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:39:p:6138-6147

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2024.2381129

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().