Detection of Choking Moments in College Tennis Based Upon Sport Specific Performance Patterns

Choking under pressure, broadly accepted and established as suboptimal performance in a particular task under pressure, is a phenomenon heavily addressed in research. Psychology domain brought up different hypotheses and theories for the existence of the phenomenon, yet engineering research rarely addresses it. This paper introduces a model and data collection framework for choking under pressure detection in college tennis based upon sport specific parameters. Hypothesis of choking under pressure existence in tennis supported by completed questionnaires collected from 55 tennis coaches served as a foundation for the creation of the choking detection model and the development of the data collection framework. There are 19 sport specific parameters selected to be measured and observed in the study using three wearable sensors and a video camera. Data were collected with four participants completing a total of nine tennis sessions. Data analysis and visualization of forehand and backhand topspin stroke swing speed measurements indicate that certain choking moments in college tennis matches can be detected solely based on the swing speed performance of the players. Results and collected data support the practicality of the presented model and demonstrate feasibility of the proposed study. The future plan for the research is to collect data for a total of 60 tennis sessions with a total of 15 participants, and to apply machine learning methods to all the gathered data of all the proposed sport specific variables in order to expand the data investigation for a potential discovery of additional choking under pressure patterns in college tennis.