Building Endurance for Three-Set Matches

Players who fade in the third set often respond by going for long runs. It helps a little, and it is not the right tool.

What tennis actually demands

A typical point lasts a handful of seconds. Between points there are around twenty seconds, and at changeovers ninety. Across two hours, the pattern is hundreds of short, intense, multi-directional efforts separated by incomplete recovery.

That is an intermittent, largely anaerobic demand sitting on top of an aerobic base. Steady-state running builds only the base, and the base is the part most club players already have enough of.

The three components

1. Aerobic base. Supports recovery between points and across sets. Two sessions a week of 30-40 minutes at conversational pace is sufficient for most club players. Cycling and swimming work and spare the joints.

2. Repeated sprint ability. The core of tennis fitness.

• 6 x 20-second maximum efforts, 40 seconds rest, three sets with two minutes between sets.
• Shuttle runs across the court width, 30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest, ten repetitions.
• On-court spider runs, timed, six repetitions with 60 seconds recovery. The times should stay consistent; a large drop-off is exactly the weakness you are training.

3. Strength. Underestimated and the most protective against injury.

• Squats, lunges and step-ups for the legs.
• Deadlifts or hip hinges for the posterior chain.
• Single-leg work, because tennis is played on one leg at a time.
• Rotational core work: cable chops, medicine ball throws.
• Shoulder external rotation and scapular work, the specific insurance policy for serving.

Two sessions a week, six to twelve repetitions, genuinely challenging load.

A weekly structure for a club player

• Monday: strength, 45 minutes.
• Tuesday: tennis practice.
• Wednesday: repeated sprint session, 25 minutes.
• Thursday: tennis practice.
• Friday: strength, 45 minutes, or rest.
• Saturday: match.
• Sunday: easy aerobic 30 minutes or complete rest.

Adjust down if this is more than your body currently handles. Doing three of these consistently beats attempting six and abandoning it in week two.

Recovery is training

• Sleep is the highest-value recovery intervention and the most commonly sacrificed.
• Eat something with carbohydrate and protein within an hour of a hard session.
• Hydrate through the match, not after. Two to three hundred millilitres at each changeover in heat.
• Take a full rest day. Adaptation happens between sessions, not during them.

Measuring it

Test something every six weeks so you know whether this is working.

• Timed spider run, best of three.
• Number of shuttle repetitions before times drop by more than ten per cent.
• How you feel physically at 4-4 in the second set, noted after matches.

The third one is subjective and it is the one that matters. If the numbers improve and the third set still collapses, the problem may be pacing, nutrition or nerves rather than fitness.