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Domenic Donjuan

Dr. Sharity Nelson

English 1301 122

1 December 2022

Rhetorical Analysis of a Peer-Reviewed Article About Tennis Serves

“Preventing a Loss of Accuracy of the Tennis Serve Under Pressure” by Jürgen

Beckmann, Lukas Fimpel, and V. Vanessa Wergin is a scientific research article focused on

finding out whether tennis players lose accuracy on their serve due to pressure from

surroundings, such as spectators. In their study, they gather twenty “highly skilled junior

athletes” that are between the ages of seventeen and eighteen (Beckmann, et al. 4). To begin,

they set up the players to “complete a series of eight serves in situations without pressure”,

which is labeled as the pre-test. (Beckmann, et al. 4). As the post-test, the participants were

instructed to do “another eight serves”, but now, with added pressure (Beckmann, et al. 4).

Throughout this article, the authors build strong credibility with the audience, use a data table

and a bar graph, and appeal to the audience’s emotion of sympathy in their article to successfully

support their argument that tennis players’ serves become less accurate because of pressure.

Firstly, the authors are successful in delivering an effective argument by means of

building strong credibility with the audience. For example, Jürgen Beckmann, Lukas Fimpel, and

V. Vanessa Wergin are all scholars from the “Department of Sport and Health Sciences” at the

“Technical University of Munich,” located in “Munich, Germany” (Beckmann, et al. 1).

Additionally, Beckmann also attended the “School of Movement and Nutrition Science” at the

“University of Queensland” in “Brisbane, Australia” (Beckmann, et al. 1). The authors—the

appeals to ethos—match the genre expectations, as they are very credible sources because of the
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universities they attended. They went to school to learn about this specific material that was able

to help them with the research in this experiment. The authors of the article themselves do not

address the audience of the text, as they are just researchers who are getting their work published

for the public and to possibly help in other similar experiments. The authors—as an appeal to

ethos—do match the purpose of the article, as they are the ones who are “investigat[ing] whether

similar effects of the left hand dynamic hand-grip can be found in a realistic tennis service

situation under pressure” (Beckmann, et al. 1). All of the authors of the article are appeals to

ethos, as they are authority figures who are very credible.

Secondly, the authors are effective in supporting their argument through the usage of a

data table and a bar graph. Table 1, a data table, and Figure 3, a bar graph, are both examples of

logos found in the article. Table 1 showcases the “means and standard deviations of the service

accuracy” (Beckmann, et al. 8). Figure 3 showcases the “distance[s] of valid serves from the

target” of both the “right hand group” and the “left hand group” (Beckmann, et al. 8). The data

table and the bar graph both match the genre expectations, as when conducting scientific

research to prove something, such examples are necessary to indicate what the changes were

from before to after the experiment. These two examples of logos only address the scientist and

psychologist audience, as they are the ones that can easily understand the data table and the bar

graph. Tennis players and coaches might take a quick glance at them and not really have an idea

of how to understand them. Table 1 and Figure 3 perfectly match with the purpose of the article,

as the data shows that pressure from the spectators and other surroundings do have an impact on

the performance of a tennis player’s serve. Additionally, they do support the argument

effectively, as the examples display real, statistical results that apply to logical thinking. The data

table and the bar graph from the article are both examples of logic and reasoning.
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Finally, the authors continue to successfully support their argument by appealing to the

audience’s emotion of sympathy. There is an example of this at the beginning of the

introduction: “A tennis player has practiced their serve a thousand times until it has become

completely automated, but when serving to win an important tournament, mistakes occur even in

highly skilled players” (Beckmann, et al. 1). When a person reads this, it can make them feel

sympathetic towards that player, as somebody who has put so many hours into practicing their

serve—an important aspect of their game—must have a fantastic serve, and they should not be

messing up during important points. This example of pathos at the beginning of the article does

not match the genre expectations, as in a scientific research article, pathos is not typically found.

This example is most likely in the article is to get attention of readers by making a connection to

their feelings. The sentence does address the tennis player and tennis coach audience, as players

might find themselves relating to the situation and coaches might think of a player they had that

was once in those shoes. This appeal to pathos does match the purpose of the article, as it is the

main reason as to why this experiment of determining whether pressure can cause a loss of

accuracy in a serve began in the first place. However, the sentence from the article does not

support the argument effectively—it is just simply a realistic example that is meant to grasp the

attention of readers. This is a great example of an appeal to pathos as it gets the reader to feel a

certain emotion, which in this case, is sympathy.

All in all, Beckman, Fimpel, and Wergin’s article is effective in supporting its argument

because it provides a connection to each rhetorical appeal: ethos, logos, and pathos. The authors

themselves are appeals to ethos, as they studied and went to school to learn all about the sciences

that go into playing the sport of tennis, which makes them credible sources. The data table and

bar graph from the article are both statistical data, which are examples of logos, as they both
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provide real proof. The very first sentence of the article is an appeal to pathos, as it makes the

reader feel sympathetic for the situation being used as an example. This article’s effectiveness in

supporting its argument is important because it allows for tennis players to understand why they

should switch to a new grip that will boost the performance of their serve.
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Work Cited

Beckmann, Jürgen, et al. “Preventing a Loss of Accuracy of the Tennis Serve under

Pressure.” PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no. 7, July 2021, pp. 1–13. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255060.