Participation, Commitment, and Loyalty Towards Youth Tennis: Player and Parent Perceptions

Abstract

Sports, in general and tennis specifically, offer diverse benefits for youth in social, physical, psychological, and mental dimensions. These benefits are known to influence commitment and loyalty towards sports. Nonetheless, the influence of perceived benefits on youth commitments and loyalty to tennis has been a void in the literature. Assuming the parental influence on youth participation in sport in general and in tennis specifically, this study measured and compared the youth tennis players’ and their parents’ perceived benefits of tennis. The study depicted physical well-being, life skills, and fun as the highly-rated perceived benefits by both players and parents/guardians. Life skills also contributed to commitment to tennis while physical well-being contributed to the loyalty towards tennis from players’ perspectives.