Competitive Readiness among Male and Female Table Tennis Student-Athletes: Basis for a Proposed Training Program

The study determined the competitive readiness of male and female table tennis athletes of the University of the Philippines before the 2016 UAAP Intercollegiate Table Tennis Competition. It answered the following questions: 1. What is the profile of the table tennis varsity athletes, as measured by the CRSTTA (Competitive Readiness Scale for Table Tennis Athletes)? 2. Is there a significant difference between male and female athletes? and 3. What training program can be proposed based on the result of the study. Using descriptive research design, the CRSTTA was administered two (2) weeks before the competition to twenty-two (22) table tennis athletes of the University of the Philippines (14 males and 8 females). The CRSTTA is a 60-item, Likert-type instrument to measure competitive readiness in the areas of mental toughness, coach ability, physical readiness, tactical readiness, anxiety management, motivation, attention and concentration, self-confidence, and team sociability. Results showed that both men and women had high levels of competitive readiness (mean=2.94, SD=0.89 and mean=2.92, SD=0.92). It also showed that there is no significant difference between genders in regards to competitive readiness. Though the results were significant before the start of the competition, this was not enough to compare if the results of the test have significant differences with the outcome of the competition, since the teams only duplicated the final rankings from the previous year. It is highly recommended that a proposed intervention training program be developed to address competitive readiness of table tennis.