Most players either lift too hard right before a match or stop lifting the second a tournament starts. Both cost you. This is how to fit strength training around tennis, around match day and through a tournament week. A lot of it is practical coaching, and I'll tell you where the research is thin.
Gym and tennis on the same day
The best place for a gym session is a day with no tennis. When that's not possible, lift first and play after. Jumps, sprints and heavy lifts need fresh legs.
Here's the evidence. In one small study, 10 competitive players aged 14 to 18 did med ball throws, or 3 sets of 6 reps at 75% of their max on four lifts. Stroke speed and accuracy didn't drop 3 minutes, 24 hours or 48 hours later. That's only 10 players and a moderate session. It says nothing about a long, heavy leg day.
- Best: lift on a day with no tennis.
- Same day: lift first, then play. A gap of 3 hours or more is better if you can manage it. Studies that mixed lifting with running or cycling found explosive gains suffered less that way.
- Lifting after a hard tennis session is fine too. Eat and drink first, and do a full warm-up.
- Match day: no lifting session.
How long before a match?
Nobody has tested an exact number. Your last hard leg session, with heavy lifts or lots of jumps, goes at least 48 hours before a match. Soreness and fatigue from hard work can take a day or two to clear. Treat 48 hours as practical guidance, not a proven number.
- 2 days or more before: train as normal.
- The day before: no hard lifting. Rest, or do a short primer. A few jumps with a stuck landing, 3 short sprints, a few med ball throws and band work for your shoulder. About 20 minutes, and nothing tiring.
- Match day: warm up and play. No lifting.
- The day after: rest or easy movement. Your next hard session comes at least 48 hours after your last match.
- After a very long match, or two match days in a row: take 2 easy days first.
What a tournament does to your body
In one study, 7 trained men played 4-hour matches on 4 days in a row. Their sprints got slower, their jumps got lower and soreness went up each day. Serve speed held, but serve accuracy dropped after play. That's an extreme case with a small group.
Padel shows a version of this. In a small study of 14 professional padel players, mental fatigue rose after matches and built up across two matches in one day.
Load spikes matter too. Gabbett (2016) argues that rapid jumps in load, more than hard training itself, drive many non-contact injuries. The IOC consensus (Soligard 2016) adds crowded calendars. A tournament week is both, so don't add anything new.
Match week: what stays and what goes
Your matches already train speed, braking, reactions and endurance. Keep what sharpens you and drop what grinds you down.
- Stays: your warm-up, a few jumps, a few short sprints, med ball throws, band work for your shoulder and mobility.
- Goes: new exercises, heavy leg work with lots of sets, extra conditioning and anything that leaves you sore.
- Days with no match: an easy walk, mobility or the short primer. Twice a week at most.
- Two matches on one day: stay warm, eat and drink between them. About 5 minutes before the next one, jog easy and do a few quick jumps and short sprints.
Sleep matters too. In one small study with no control group, 12 college tennis players slept about 2 hours more per night for a week. Their serve accuracy went from 36% to 42%. Keep a steady bedtime and wake time, even on late-match days.
Keeping your strength through long tournament runs
One week without heavy lifting costs you almost nothing. Strength fades slowly when training drops (Mujika and Padilla, 2000).
Several weeks in a row is different. In professional footballers, one short strength session a week for 12 weeks held their leg strength and sprint speed. One session every second week didn't. A review found young adults can hold strength for up to 32 weeks on 1 session a week and 1 set per exercise, as long as the weight stays heavy. To be honest, that's football data from 14 players, and the review says there's too little evidence for athletes.
So from the second tournament week in a row, add one short session.
- Put it on a day with no match, at least 48 hours before the next one. If there's no such day, skip it.
- Your main leg lift: 2 sets, same reps, same weight and same RPE as your last normal week. RPE is how hard it felt, from 1 to 10.
- One upper-body pull: 2 sets, same weight.
- A few jumps with a stuck landing, and band work for your shoulder.
Tapering before a big match
For the 2 or 3 biggest events of your season, you can taper. The best-studied taper lasts about 2 weeks. Volume drops by 41 to 60%, while intensity and frequency stay the same (Bosquet 2007). That data is mostly swimmers, cyclists and runners. Another review agrees, with sessions cut by 20% at most (Mujika and Padilla 2003).
In team sports, tapering also improved power, change of direction and repeated sprints by small to moderate amounts (Vachon 2020). I couldn't find a tennis study, so using this for tennis is my own reading.
- Same exercises, same weights, same number of sessions. Fewer sets and reps.
- Week 1 of the taper: about 40% less volume. Week 2: about 60% less.
- Jumps, sprints and throws: full speed, full rest, fewer reps.
- Skip anything that tends to leave you sore.
- Not for every tournament, and not within 4 weeks of another taper. That last part is my suggestion.
Based on Bosquet et al. (2007), Mujika and Padilla (2003), Spiering et al. (2021), Rønnestad et al. (2011), Gescheit et al. (2015), Terraza-Rebollo and Baiget (2021) and Soligard et al. (2016).