Study Design

This study employed a non-experimental, applied, observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional design based on notational analysis. Data were collected during the 2024 South American Junior Table Tennis Championships (U19 category) held in Chile. For the purposes of this study, six official matches were selected for analysis-three men´s matches (from the Round of 32 and the Round of 16) and three women´s matches (from the Round of 16) each corresponding to one athlete from the Chilean 19 national team. Each rally was considered the unit of analysis and was coded using Lince Plus 2.1 following the observational framework proposed by Pradas et al. (2012), with minor adaptations to coding labels and service zones for improved clarity. All rallies from the selected matches were included in the analysis.

Participants

The sample consisted of six Chilean table tennis players from the national team: three men (18.6 ± 0.7 years) and three women (19±0 years). The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) belong to the youth category as a national team member (U19), (2) compete at the 2024 Youth South American Table Tennis Championship in the youth category, and (3) sign the informed consent to participate in the project. It left out everyone who (1) was a paralympic athlete, (2) did not pass for the qualifying round of the 2024 Youth South American Table Tennis Championship, and (3) not being of legal age (≥ 18 years).

Instruments

The audiovisual recording was done by two cell phones, the iPhone XR (12 MP camera, 1080p/30fps recording) and the iPhone 11 Pro (12 MP, 1080p/30fps) specifically. The 2.1 version of the Lince Plus software was used to analyze the recordings, which is validated for observational studies in sports (Soto-Fernández et al., 2022). The data were tabulated through Microsoft Excel version 16.102 for its posterior statistical analysis using Jamovi version 2.5.5 program.

Protocol

Before recording the games, a pilot test was carried out in a competition before the South American championship, aiming to recognize the competition areas and favorable positions to record. A tripod with cell phones was set 3 meters high over the table to record the games. The table's distribution at the competition differs depending on the recording angle to have lateral and diagonal takes.

After the recordings, the videos were analyzed using the Lince Plus software 2.1 version, where the variables to be measured were registered through a system of labels or coding. That coding was made based on Pradas et al. (2012) since it is a proven tool for table tennis analysis. The codes and service areas were modified for better comprehension, but they keep all the categories and criteria from the tool that were previously mentioned. The details of the measurements and categories are presented in Table 1.

The analyzed games correspond to the 2024 Youth South American Championship. Specifically, six games were analyzed: three men’s matches (2 from a 32 round and one from a 16 round) and three women’s matches (3 from a 16 round). From this, six databases were obtained and exported from Lince Plus, which were filtered and tabulated through Microsoft Excel version 16.102; the data obtained, a database compatible with Jamovi version 2.5.5 was created for the subsequent statistical analysis specified in point 3.7.

Statistical Analysis

Cohen’s Kappa coefficient was used to assess interobserver reliability, with values ≥ 0.80 considered indicative of acceptable agreement (Abraira, 2001).

Qualitative variables were analyzed using frequencies and percentages, whereas quantitative variables were summarized using means and standard deviations. To compare game actions between men and women, two tests were applied depending on the normality of the distribution assessed with the Shapiro-Wilk test. When the data followed a normal distribution, Student´s t-test was used; otherwise, the Mann-Whitney U test was applied. The significance level was set at p ≤ 0.05.

General Characteristics

Table 2 shows the variables related to the athletes’ technical aspects, such as game style, racket grip type, and handedness. Of the six players, 100% of men present an offensive game style, while 66.7% women present a defensive or mixed game style. Regarding the racket grip, both genders have a European grip, as does their handedness, where 100% of the sample is right-handed.

The Cohen Kappa index obtained after analyzing the matches was, on average, 0.92, which indicates a considerable consistency in the observed variables.

Technical Characteristics

The results associated with technical characteristics such as strokes, hitting side, and type of strokes are presented below, grouped by gender. The data is conveyed through mean and standard deviation, and the p-value is also indicated to verify if there are significant differences between men and women.

Regarding the strokes (Table 3), describe the total number, minimum, and maximum made during a match, and the details of the total strokes made by the national team members. Men executed a more significant number of total hits per match than women (471±105.41 vs. 446.33±81.81). In contrast, women executed a more significant number of hits per play than men (4.53±0.15 vs. 4.27±0.25).

On the hitting side (Table 4), men presented higher mean forehand values and women higher mean backhand values, although no statistically significant differences were observed between sexes (p > 0.05), likely due to the high variability and small sample size.

Considering the strokes technique (Table 5) as the last characteristic of this section, the most used technical resource by men in comparison to women was the topspin hit (87.67±28.75 vs. 80.67±35.92), while most of the backspin hits were from women in comparison to men (70.67±18.77 vs. 45.33±11.59).

Tactical Characteristics

Descriptive data indicate that winning actions (Table 6) were infrequent in both groups, as only direct point-ending strokes were considered. This explains the low absolute number of winning actions compared with losing actions and reflects the predominance of points decided by errors rather than winners in table tennis. Forehand drive showed higher mean values for winning actions in both groups, whereas losing actions were more frequently associated with forehand drive errors in men and backhand drive errors in women. No statistically significant differences were observed between sexes (p > 0.05).

Regarding the most used technical resource in winning techniques (Table 7), both groups correspond to the topspin, which is used more significantly by women than men (5±5.29 vs. 4.33±3.79). Women are also observed only to present winning actions with the topspin. In contrast, men present winning actions with more technical resources (backspin hit, no effect, service).

In regard to the losing techniques (table 8), the most used technical resource by both groups is the topspin, being used more significantly by women (24±6.08) than by men (22±13.89). In the intragroup analysis, it is observed that the second most used technical resource in losing actions by men is strokes with no effect (13±9), while in the case of women, it is backspin (7.33±2.08).

Considering the service area (Table 9), when defined from the server´s perspective, men tended to serve towards the left side of the table (32.00 ±15.39), whereas women tended to direct the serve towards the right side of the table (32.70±11.01). In the intragroup analysis, men showed a small difference between serves directed to the right and left sides of the table, while women exhibited a more pronounced tendency to serve towards the right side.

Concerning the serving techniques used from the right area (Table 10), men performed a more significant amount of backspin returns (20±8.66), as did women (11.33±5.13). Following up with the right area, in men’s intragroup analysis, the least used technical resource when executing a return is no-effect strokes (3±2). In women’s intragroup analysis, the least used technical resources are the topspin (7±8.72) and the strokes with no effect (7±11.27).

On the other hand, men performed a more significant amount of backspin returns in the left area (13±5.29), as did women (17.66±17.04). Apart from that, the least used technique by women was the return with no effect (0.66±1.15), the same as men (1±1).

Temporal Characteristics

The results associated with temporal characteristics, including match duration, rest duration, effective playing time, rally duration, and play density, are presented in Table 11. Data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation and grouped by gender. P-values are reported to examine differences between men and women.

Descriptive data indicate that men showed higher mean values for match duration (39.10 ± 13.79 min) and rest duration (30.46 ± 11.60 min) compared with women (31.84 ± 8.86 min and 24.11 ± 6.82 min, respectively); however, no statistically significant differences were observed between sexes for any temporal variable (p > 0.05).

Technical Aspects

The findings indicate that male players executed a higher total number of strokes per match, whereas female players demonstrated a higher average number of strokes per rally. Although these differences did not reach statistical significance, they align with previous studies describing more offensive tendencies in male athletes and greater rally stability among female players (Pradas et al., 2023; De la Torre, 2021). The observed hitting patterns, showing a greater reliance on forehand strokes in men and backhand strokes in women, are consistent with well-established technical-motor profiles reported in the literature (Malagoli et al., 2013; Sánchez et al., 2021), reinforcing the contextual validity of the present results.

In both sexes, topspin emerged as the dominant technical resource, consistent with the evolution of modern table tennis following ITTF regulatory changes that promoted highly rotated and offensive playing dynamics (Malagoli et al., 2014; Mulloy et al., 2014). Notably, given the limited number of studies involving female youth samples, the present research contributes meaningful insights into the technical trends within this understudied demographic.

Tactical Aspects

The tactical analyses showed that winning actions were primarily executed using forehand strokes in both sexes, whereas losing actions were associated with backhand errors in women and forehand errors in men. This distribution reflects the specific demands of offensive versus mixed/defensive playing styles prevalent in each group, suggesting that the relationship between technique selection and effectiveness is mediated by individual game strategies.

Regarding the technical actions involved in point-winning and point-losing scenarios, topspin was consistently predominant, supporting evidence from senior and junior elite-level studies (Pradas et al., 2023; De la Torre, 2021). Its dual presence as both an effective action and a source of error highlights the inherently high-risk, high-reward nature of this technique and the biomechanical precision required for successful execution.

Service analysis revealed directional tendencies that differed between sexes; however, the dichotomous division of service zones limited detailed comparisons with studies employing more refined spatial classification systems. For service returns, backspin was the most frequently used technique across groups, aligning with prior research describing its effectiveness in neutralizing spin and stabilizing the early stages of the sequence of play.

Temporal Aspects

Finally, concerning the temporal aspects of the game, we have the match length, where men presented an average duration of 39.1±13.19 and women 31.84±8.86, which are within the ranks displayed by Sanchez et al. (2021) and the average duration of De la Torre (2021).

On the other hand, the average values found in men’s and women’s played time frames were 4.66s±0.16s and 4.67s±0.29s, respectively (Sanchez et al., 2021). The previous results were similar to those found in De la Torre’s (2021) study based on a men’s and women’s international competition.

Although men’s actual game time is superior to women’s, if we convert the results to percentages, the effective game time in men represents 22.17% of the whole match, while the effective game time in women is, in fact, higher, representing 24.24% of the whole match (De Mello et al., 2017; Pradas et al., 2021a; Pradas et al., 2021b; Sanchez et al., 2021).

The game’s density in men and women showed similar values, having a density of 0.29 and 0.32, respectively. As Sanchez et al. (2021) indicate, the density is slightly higher in women, resembling the values found in this study. Regarding men, their values are similar to those found in De Mello et al. (2017) and Leite et al. (2017) study. In the case of women, there was not much evidence concerning game density, but they presented lower values than the ones in De la Torre’s (2021) study.

The differences in the temporal aspects in the previously mentioned studies may depend on different factors such as the game modality, the type, and the competition stage. Also, authors such as Zagatto et al. (2010) and Leite et al. (2017) suggest the importance of considering the dominant style of the game, concluding that the length of the play, where the offensive style is dominant, tends to be significantly shorter in comparison to the length of a mixed or defensive game style.

This study provides several relevant contributions to both sport science literature and applied practice. It offers updated notational analysis data derived from official competition, addressing an existing gap in research on South American youth categories. Additionally, it includes female athletes, providing scarce yet necessary insights into their technical tactical behavior within high-performance developmental contexts. The findings also confirm international tendencies related to offensive play and the predominance of topspin, contextualizing these patterns within a national-level youth population. Finally, the study expands temporal reference values applicable to training design, enabling planning that is more closely aligned with the actual demands of competition.

Despite these valuable contributions, several limitations must be acknowledged to contextualize the scope of the present findings. The reduced sample size and the analysis of only one match per athlete limit the generalizability of the results and warrant caution when extrapolating these trends to broader youth populations. Moreover, the binary classification of service zones constrained the level of tactical detail attainable, reducing comparability with studies employing more refined spatial coding systems. Additional influential variables such as rubber type, opponent characteristics, and competition stage were not controlled for, despite their documented relevance in shaping technical tactical performance. Consequently, future research should include larger samples and multiple matches per player, incorporate more detailed spatial analyses of service and return patterns, integrate complementary biomechanical and perceptual cognitive measures, and examine these indicators across different competitive stages or opponent levels to deepen understanding of performance determinants in youth table tennis.