Advances in Performance Optimization, Health, and Injury Prevention in Racket Sports

Dear Colleagues,

Racket sports represent one of the fastest-growing groups of sports worldwide, with tennis, badminton, padel, and the emerging sport of pickleball attracting increasing participation across all age groups and competitive levels. These sports are characterized by high physical, technical, and cognitive demands, involving repetitive movements, explosive actions, and dense competition schedules. Consequently, optimizing performance while minimizing injury risk represents a major challenge for athletes, coaches, and medical and performance professionals.

This Special Issue of Sports (MDPI) aims to bring together high-quality original research and comprehensive reviews that address performance enhancement, injury prevention, and medical aspects in racket sports from a multidisciplinary perspective. Particular emphasis will be placed on biomechanical, physiological, and neuromuscular determinants of performance, as well as on the mechanisms underlying acute and overuse injuries. Topics of interest include injury epidemiology, load monitoring, fatigue management, recovery strategies, rehabilitation and return-to-play processes.

In addition, submissions exploring medical and clinical aspects are strongly encouraged, including growth and maturation in youth athletes, sex-related differences, cardiovascular considerations, nutritional and psychological factors, and the influence of equipment and playing surfaces. While the primary focus will be on tennis, badminton, padel, and pickleball, contributions related to other racket sports are also welcome.

This Special Issue seeks to serve as a scientific reference for researchers, practitioners, and healthcare professionals, fostering evidence-based practice and facilitating the translation of research findings into applied settings. Ultimately, it aims to contribute to the sustainable development of racket sports by promoting athlete performance, health, and long-term well-being.

Prof. Dr. Javier Abián-Vicén
Dr. Pablo Abián
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sports is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.