The Relative Age Effect in Czech U14 Male and Female Tennis Players in 2007–2016

Roman Koloničný; Adrián Agricola; Michal Bozděch; Jiří Zháněl

doi:10.5817/StS2021-2-5

The Relative Age Effect in Czech U14 Male and Female Tennis Players in 2007–2016

Vol.15,No.2(2021)

Roman Koloničný Adrián Agricola Michal Bozděch Jiří Zháněl

https://doi.org/10.5817/StS2021-2-5

PDF

Abstract

The issue of the Relative Age Effect (RAE) has been long researched, discussed and published both in the academic and coaching community and the number of studies on it in various sports has significantly grown in recent years. The aim of this study was to verify the existence of RAE among Czech male (n = 6552) and female (n = 4131) junior tennis players and to identify possible differences in birthdate effect between male and female players. The research was carried out in players registered in the years 2007–2016 in the U14 age category in Czech Tennis Association (CTA) database; the athletes were divided into three subgroups (‘Ranked’, ‘Top 100’, ‘Top 10’). Research data were analysed by the methods of descriptive and inferential statistics: relative and absolute frequency, chi-square goodness of fit test () and chi-square test of independence () with the use of effect size (ES index w). A declining tendency of frequencies from Q1 to Q4 between male and female junior players was proven in all three subgroups.In the whole period of 2007–2016, a significant and strong RAE was demonstrated only in the ‘Top 10’ male subgroup (RAE was significant and ES was small or trivial in the other two subgroups). Among the female players, RAE was significant in all three subgroups (ES was small or trivial). Gender differences in RAE in favour of male players were significant in ‘Top 100’ and ‘Ranked’ (ES was small or trivial in all three subgroups). In the short and long term, RAE can have significant implications for the sport development of athletes; both coaches and the professional public can therefore be recommended to pay attention to this issue. The impact of RAE in sport, i.e. the uneven distribution of athletes’ birthdates, is more pronounced especially among junior athletes and often significantly affects their sports development and career.

Keywords:
birthdate; chronological age; racquet sports; talent identification; youth sport

Pages:
50–60

References

Agricola A., Zháněl, J., & Bozděch, M. (2017). The comparison of the influence of the age effect between elite junior male and female tennis players. In M. Zvonař, & Z. Sajdlová (eds.). The 11th International Conference on Kinanthropology, „Sport and Quality of Life“, 313–321. Brno: Masaryk University.

Albuquerque, M. R., Franchini, E., Lage, G. M., Da Costa, V. T., Costa, I. T., & Malloy-Diniz, L. F. (2015). The relative age effect in combat sports: an analysis of Olympic Judo athletes, 1964–2012. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 121(1), 300–308.

Andronikos, G., Elumaro, A. I., Westbury, T., & Martindale, R. J. J. (2016). Relative age effect: implications for effective practice. Journal of Sports Sciences, 34(12), 1124–1131. DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2015.1093647.

Baker, J., Schorer, J. & Cobley, S. (2010). Relative Age Effects. Sportwissenschaft, 40(1), 26–30.

Barnsley, R. H., Thompson, A. H., & Barnsley, P. E. (1985). Hockey Success and Birthdate: The Relative Age Effect. Physical Education and Recreation Journal, 51(8), 23–28.

Barnsley, R. H., Thompson, A. H., & Legault, P. (1992). Family Planning: Football Style: The Relative Age Effect in Football. International Review of Sport Sociology, 27(1), 78–87.

Baxter-Jones, A. D. G. (1995). Growth and development of young athletes: Should competition levels be age related? Sports Medicine, 20(2), 59–64.

Bozděch, M., Nykodým, J., Agricola, A., & Zháněl, J. (2017). The relative age effect in the world junior tennis finals 2012-2016 (male). In M. Zvonař & Z. Sajdlová (Eds.), The 11th International Conference on Kinanthropology, „Sport and Quality of Life“, 322–330. Brno: Masaryk University.

Bozděch, M., Agricola, A., Nykodým, J., Zderčík, A., & Vodička, T. (2020). The Relative Age Effect in the Top 100 ATP Tennis Players 2016–2018. In J. Cacek, Z. Sajdlová, & K. Šimková (Eds.). The 12th International Conference on Kinanthropology, „Sport and Quality of Life“, 240–247. https://doi.org/10.5817/CZ.MUNI.P210-9631-2020-31.

Cobley, S., Baker, J., Wattie, N., & McKenna, J. (2009). Annual Age-Grouping and Athlete Development: A Meta-Analytical Review of Relative Age Effect in Sports. Sports Medicine, 39(3), 235–256.

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Costa, A. M., Marques, M. C., Louro, H., Ferreira, S. S., & Marinho, D. A. (2013). The relative age effect among elite youth competitive swimmers. European Journal of Sport Science, 13(5), 437–444.

Cumming, G. (2013). The New Statistics: A How‐To Guide. Australian Psychologist, 48(3), 161–170. DOI: 10.1111/ap.12018.

Delorme, N., & Raspaud, M. (2009). The relative age effect in young French basketball players: a study on the whole population. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 19(2), 235–242. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2008.00781.x.

Delorme, N., Boiché, J., & Raspaud, M. (2010). Relative Age Effect in Female Sport: A Diachronic Examination of Soccer Players. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 20(3), 509–515.

Delorme, N., & Champely, S. (2015). Relative Age Effect and chi-squared statistics. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50, 740–746.

Delorme, N., Chalabaev, A., & Raspaud M. (2011). Relative age is associated with sport dropout: evidence from youth categories of French basketball. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 21, 120–128. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2009.01060.x.

Dudink, A. (1994). Birth date and sporting success. Nature, 368(6472), 592–592.

Edgar, S., & O’Donoghue, P. (2005). Season of birth distribution of elite tennis players. Journals of Sports Sciences, 23(10), 1013–1020.

Filipčič, A. (2001). Birth date and success in tennis. Coaching & Sport Science Review, 23, 9–11.

Fraser-Thomas, J., Coté, J., & Deakin, J. (2008). Examining adolescent sport dropout and prolonged engagement from a developmental perspective. Journal of Sport Psychology, 20, 318–333.

Fumarco, L., Gibbs, B. G., Jarvis, J. A., & Rossi, G. (2017). The relative age effect reversal among the National Hockey League elite. Plos One, 12(8), e0182827.

Gerdin, G., Hedberg, M., & Hageskog, C. A. (2018). Relative age effect in Swedish male and female tennis players born in 1998–2001. Sports, 6(2), 38.

Gil, S.M., Bidaurrazaga-Letona, I., Martin-Garetxana, I., Lekue, J.A. & Larruskain, J. (2019). Does birth date influence career attainment in professional soccer? Science and Medicine in Football, DOI: 10.1080/24733938.2019.1696471.

Gómez-López, M., Granero-Gallegos, A., Molina, S. F., & Ríos, L. J. C. (2017). Relative age effect during the selection of young handball player. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 17(1), 418. https://doi.org/DOI:10.7752/jpes.2017.01062.

Gorski, T., Rosser, T., Hoppeler, H., & Vogt, M. (2016). Relative Age Effect in Young Swiss Alpine Skiers From 2004 to 2011. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 11, 455–463. http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2014-0418.

Hammer, T. (2020). Relative age effect in international ski jumping: analysis of FIS World Cup and FIS Junior World Ski Championships. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 20(3), 1455–1460. https://doi.org/DOI:10.7752/jpes.2020.03200.

Hancock, D. J. (2017). Female relative age effects and the second-quartile phenomenon in young female ice hockey players. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 32, 12–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2017.05.002.

Hopkins, W.G. (2016). A New View of Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.sportsci.org/resource/stats/index.html.

Ibáñez, S. J., Mazo, A., Nascimento, J., & García-Rubio, J. (2018). The Relative Age Effect in under-18 basketball: Effects on performance according to playing position. PloS One, 13(7), e0200408.

Krahenbühl, T, & Leonardo, L. (2020). The relative age effect: coaches' choices as evidence of social influence on youth handball. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 20(5), Art 337, 2460–2467. DOI:10.7752/jpes.2020.05337.

Loffing, F., Schorer, J., & Cobley, S.P. (2010). Relative Age Effects are a developmental problem in tennis: But not necessarily when you’re left-handed! High Ability Studies, 21(1), 19–25.

Malina, R. (1994). Physical growth and biological maturation of young athletes. Exercise and Sport Science Reviews, 22, 280–284.

Moreira, J., Lopes, M., Faria, L., & Albuquerque, M. (2017). Relative Age Effect and Constituent Year Effect: An analysis of the international tennis federation ranking. Journal of Physical Education, 28(1), e2814. doi:10.4025/jphyseduc.v28i1.2814.

Musch, J., & Grondin, S. (2001). c. Developmental Review, 21(2), 147–167.

Myburgh, G. K., Cumming, S. P., Coelho e Silva, M. J., Cooke, K., & Malina, R. M. (2016). Growth and maturity status of elite British junior tennis players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 34(20), 1957–1964.

Nykodým, J., Bozděch, M., Agricola A., & Zháněl, J. (2020). The Relative Age Effect at the Ice Hockey World Championships (IHWC) in the years 2015-2017. Journal of Human Kinetics, 74(4), 150-159. DOI: 10.2478/hukin-2020-0044.

O’Donoghue P. G. (2009a). Season-of-birth effects on elite junior tennis players’ world rankings. In A. Lees, D. Cabello, & G. Torres (eds). Science and Racket Sports IV, 275–281. London: Routledge.

O’Donoghue, P. (2009b). Relative age in elite tennis. Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism, 16(4), 379–388.

O’Donoghue, P. (2014). Relative age effect on elite tennis strategy for players born before and after 1st January 1985. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 14(2), 453–462.

Pacharoni, R., Aoki, M. S., Costa, E. C., Moreira, A., & Massa, M. (2014). Efeito da idade relativa no Tênis. Revista Brasileira de Ciência e Movimento, 22(3): 111–117.

Parma, J. O., & Penna, E. M. (2018). The relative age effect on Brazilian elite volleyball. Journal of Physical Education, 29, e2942.

Pintner, R., & Forlano, G. (1934). The birth month of eminent men. Journal of Applied Psychology, 18(2), 178–188. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0069821.

Ribeiro Júnior, E. J. F., Keller, B., Pereira, J. L., Coelho, R. W., Villas Boas, M. S., & Grunevald, E. (2013). O fenômeno da idade relativa em atletas de tênis infantojuvenil e profissional: nível de associação com o ranking da federação sul-americana e mundial. Revista da Educação Física, 24(3), 371–379.

Romann, M., Rössler, R., Javet, M., & Faude, O. (2018). Relative age effects in Swiss talent development – a nationwide analysis of all sports. Journal of Sports Sciences, 36(17), 2025–2031.

Rubia A.d.l., Bjørndal, C.T., Sanchez-Molina, J., Yague, J.M., Calvo, J.L., & Maroto-Izquierdo, S. (2020). The relationship between the relative age effect and performance among athletes in World Handball Championships. PLoS ONE, 15(3), e0230133. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230133.

Savassifigueiredo, L., Ribeiro, L.C., Pereira Fialho, J.V.A.P, Da Silva, D.G., Gantois, P., Costa, G.C.T, & Fonseca, F.S. (2020). Relative Age Effects and team performance among elite beach handballathletes. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 20(6), Art 454, 3354–3360.

Söğüt, M., Luz, L. G. O., Kaya, Ö. B., Altunsoy, K., Dogan, A. A., Kirazci, S., Clemente, F. M., Nikolaidis, P. T., Rosemann, T., & Knechtle, B. (2019). Age- and Maturity-Related Variations in Morphology, Body Composition, and Motor Fitness among Young Female Tennis Players. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16, 2412. doi:10.3390/ijerph16132412.

Sullivan, G. M., & Feinn, R. (2012). Using effect size—or why the P value is not enough. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 4(3), 279–282.

Thompson, A. H., Barnsley, R. H., & Stebelsky, G. (1991). “Born to Play Ball” The Relative Age Effect and Major League Baseball. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8(2), 146–151.

Ulbricht, A., Fernandez-Fernandez, J., Mendez-Villanueva, A., & Ferrauti, A. (2015). The Relative Age Effect and Physical Fitness Characteristics in German Male Tennis Players. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 14(3), 634–642.

Vincent, J., & Glamser, F. D. (2006). Gender differences in the relative age effect among US Olympic development program youth soccer players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 24, 405–413.

Metrics