The popularity of Racket Sports games can be observed across the world. The popularity and elite performances in each of the most famous racket sports are reaching new milestones. In Tennis, we are witnessing an incredible battle between the top three players in the history of the game. Table tennis and badminton are amongst the highlights of the Olympics. Never before have there been so many Squash Players from so many different countries been among the world's best. Lastly, Padel, whose popularity is breaking all records and spreading around the world with incredible speed. The commonality of all the above games is definitely the fact that they are easy to enjoy. On the other hand, they are complex games where the performance at the highest level depends on a number of parameters and their synergistic effects.

Research and empirical work have revealed the importance of psychological/mental skills, factors, and strategies in improving athletic performance, especially in racket sports. High levels of self-confidence, commitment, motivation as well as the ability to imagine, self-regulate, set and achieved goals, control emotion, stress, and anxiety facilitate the ability of the racket sport players to achieve peak performance. For example, players and coaches recognize that the mental or psychological factor should be considered and trained in the same way as the technical or physical components. The aim of this Research Topic is to bring together articles in which psychological techniques, factors, or strategies are discussed, used, or tested in order to improve the performance of racket sport players such as tennis, table tennis, badminton, or squash, and also in new activities such as racketlon, paddle or beach tennis. Topics of primary interest include, but are not limited to: • Mental training for racket sports; • The role of mental coach in racket sports; • Psychological strategies to improve the performance in racket sports; • Relationship between performance and psychological factors; • Applied performance enhancement by means of psychological technics; • Measures of psychological variables in racket sport players; • Training of psychological skills for performance improvement in racket sport.

This book examines the logic of ‘faster, higher, and stronger’ and the technoscientific revolution that has driven tremendous growth in the sports economy and in sport performance over the last 100 years. It asks whether this logic needs revisiting in the light of the climate crisis and sport’s environmental responsibilities. Drawing on multi-disciplinary work in sport history, sport pedagogy, sport philosophy, sport science, and environmental history, the book considers not only how sportification may have contributed to the growing environmental impact of sport but also whether it might be used as a tool of positive social change. It reflects on the ways that sport sets performance limits for other ethical reasons, such as doping controls, and asks whether sport could or should set limits for environmental reasons too. Sport, Performance and Sustainability touches on key themes in sport studies, including digitisation, activism, social media, empowerment, youth sport, and physical education. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, the environment, development, sociology, or culture. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Sport performance analysis techniques help coaches, athletes and sport scientists develop an objective understanding of actual sport performance, as opposed to self-report, fitness tests or laboratory based experiments. For example, contemporary performance analysis enables elite sports people and coaches to obtain live feedback of match statistics and video sequences using flexible internet systems, systems that have become an indispensible tool for all those involved in high performance sport. The Routledge Handbook of Sports Performance Analysis is the most comprehensive guide to this exciting and dynamic branch of sport science ever to be published. The book explores performance analysis across the four main contexts in which it is commonly used: support for coaches and athletes; the media; judging sport contests, and academic research. It offers an up-to-date account of methodological advances in PA research, assesses the evidence underpinning contemporary theories of sport performance, and reviews developments in applied PA across a wide range of sports, from soccer to track and field athletics. Covering every important aspect of PA, including tactics, strategy, mechanical aspects of technique, physical aspects of performance such as work-rate, coach behaviour and referee behaviour, this is an essential reference for any serious student, researcher or practitioner working in sport performance analysis, sport coaching or high performance sport.

Kinanthropometrics is the study of the human body size and somatotypes and their quantitative relationships with exercise and nutrition. This is the second edition of a successful text on the subject.

The work of a sports therapist is highly technical and requires a confident, responsible and professional approach. The Routledge Handbook of Sports Therapy, Injury Assessment and Rehabilitation is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for those studying or working in this field and is the first book to comprehensively cover all of the following areas: Sports Injury Aetiology Soft Tissue Injury Healing Clinical Assessment in Sports Therapy Clinical Interventions in Sports Therapy Spinal and Peripheral Anatomy, Injury Assessment and Management Pitch-side Trauma Care Professionalism and Ethics in Sports Therapy The Handbook presents principles which form the foundation of the profession and incorporates a set of spinal and peripheral regional chapters which detail functional anatomy, the injuries common to those regions, and evidence-based assessment and management approaches. Its design incorporates numerous photographs, figures, tables, practitioner tips and detailed sample Patient Record Forms. This book is comprehensively referenced and multi-authored, and is essential to anyone involved in sports therapy, from their first year as an undergraduate, to those currently in professional practice.