Tennis injuries. A review of the literature

The aim of the present study is to provide a review of the available scientific knowledge in terms of tennis injuries for the last 15 years with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge about the matter and to allow a better approach of the lines of research. The main findings of this systematic review were firstly the great variation in the reported injury incidence between the different descriptive epidemiological studies analyzed. On the other hand, although a great scientific evidence proves that most of the injuries take place in the lower limbs, only the 24% of the studies analyzed in the present systematic review had the lower limbs and the trunk as research objects. Taking into account the intervention studies analyzed, just 7 articles were published between 1995 and the present time, besides having limitations due to the fact that they not include confidence intervals when reporting the effectiveness of the intervention under exam. Lastly, from 2007 to the present time the number of published studies in the field of tennis injuries has been progressively decreasing, so it becomes necessary a greater investigation in order to solve this fact and to develop tennis injury prevention programs which prove to be really effective.