Yimiao Zhou¹, Adem Preljevic², Semrija Smailović³, Stefan Đorđević⁴, Borko Katanic⁵, Sasa Milenkovic⁴, Miao Wu⁶, Luka Zlatković⁴, Maša Antonijević⁴, Mima Stankovic⁴

¹School of Physical Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
²State University of Novi Pazar, Novi Pazar, Serbia
³State University of Novi Pazar, Department of Pedagogical and Psychological Sciences, Novi Pazar, Serbia
⁴University of Nis, Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, Nis, Serbia
⁵Montenergin Sports Academy, Podgorica, Montenegro
⁶School of Physical Education Guangdong, University of Technology, Guanzhou, China

Stress Levels among Tennis Umpires: Differences by Gender, On-Court Position, Work Experience and Tournament Categories

Sport Mont 2025, 23(1), 111-116 | DOI: 10.26773/smj.250217

Abstract

The negative psychological issues that could negatively impact a professional career include psychological forms of stress. Threfore, the aim of this research was to examine differences in stress levels among professionals tennis umpires based on gender, on-court position, work experience, and the category of tournaments they officiate. The sample of participants was 92 referees (53 male and 39 female) licensed by the ITF, ATP and WTA. A special questionnaire was designed to assess stress, which will evaluate the attitudes in a specific situation during the officiating of tennis matches. Based on the analysis of the obtained results, it was established that there is a significant difference between the chair and line umpires in matters related to non-delegation for important matches (p=0.031) and criticism from laypersons (p=0.030), as well as a difference between participants of different levels of experience regarding the statement that officiating takes up a lot of time (p=0.025). In all other aspects, there were no differences between chair and line umpires, nor among umpires based on their length of service in officiating or their representation in judging different categories of tournaments. These findings indicate that, in most aspects determining the level of stress, there is no difference concerning different categories of umpires. In other words, tennis umpires experience a similar level of stress regardless of their officiating experience or the level of competition they officiate, and there is no difference based on gender or the position of chair or line umpire.

Keywords

chair umpire, line umpire, questionnaire, stress, tournaments

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