Quick Overview
An adductor muscle injury—often called an adductor strain or groin strain—affects the muscles on the inner thigh that help pull the leg toward the body and stabilize the pelvis.
In tennis, these muscles are heavily loaded during wide lateral lunges, sudden changes of direction, explosive push-offs, sliding, and reaching for low balls. Injuries can range from mild overstretching to a partial or complete muscle-tendon tear.
Symptoms
Common symptoms include:
- Pain in the inner thigh or groin
- Sudden sharp pain during a lunge, sprint, or change of direction
- Tenderness along the adductor muscles
- Pain when squeezing the legs together
- Pain with running, cutting, or lateral movement
- Reduced strength and range of motion
- Swelling or bruising in more significant injuries
- A popping or tearing sensation with a severe strain
Seek medical evaluation if there is severe pain, substantial bruising or swelling, inability to walk normally, or persistent symptoms.
Causes
Adductor injuries in tennis may result from:
- Sudden lateral lunges
- Rapid changes of direction
- Explosive acceleration or deceleration
- Overstretching during a wide defensive movement
- Inadequate warm-up
- Fatigue and reduced neuromuscular control
- Weakness or imbalance between the adductors, hip abductors, and core
- Previous groin or adductor injury
- Sudden increases in training or match volume
Diagnosis
A sports medicine professional typically evaluates:
- Medical history — when and how the injury occurred.
- Physical examination — tenderness, strength, flexibility, and pain with resisted hip adduction.
- Functional testing — walking, jogging, lunging, and sport-specific movements as appropriate.
- Imaging — ultrasound or MRI may be considered when a significant tear is suspected or when the diagnosis is uncertain.
The clinician also needs to distinguish an adductor injury from other causes of groin pain, including hip-joint problems, abdominal/groin injuries, and stress injuries.
Treatment
Early Phase
For an acute injury, treatment commonly focuses on:
- Relative rest from painful tennis movements
- Ice for short periods if it helps control pain
- Avoiding aggressive stretching early after injury
- Gradual restoration of comfortable movement
Rehabilitation
Once pain allows, rehabilitation generally progresses through:
Phase 1 — Pain control & activation
- Gentle range-of-motion exercises
- Isometric adductor contractions
- Core and pelvic-control exercises
Phase 2 — Strength
- Progressive adductor strengthening
- Side-lying adduction
- Resistance-band exercises
- Squats and controlled lunges
- Hip and core strengthening
Phase 3 — Functional loading
- Running progression
- Lateral movements
- Controlled change-of-direction drills
- Progressive tennis-specific footwork
Phase 4 — Return to competition
- Higher-speed lateral movements
- Wide-ball recovery drills
- Explosive push-offs
- Full-intensity practice before competitive play
For a significant tear, rehabilitation should be supervised by a qualified sports medicine or physical therapy professional.
Prevention
Tennis players can reduce the risk of adductor injuries by:
- Performing a progressive warm-up before playing
- Maintaining adductor and hip strength
- Training the glutes and core
- Gradually increasing training intensity and volume
- Practicing controlled lateral movement and deceleration
- Avoiding sudden spikes in match or practice workload
- Maintaining adequate recovery between intense sessions
- Continuing strengthening after returning from a previous groin injury
A structured adductor-strengthening program, combined with progressive sport-specific training, can be particularly useful for players with a history of groin problems.
Return to Tennis
Return should be criteria-based rather than based only on the number of days since injury.
A player should generally be able to:
- Walk and jog without significant pain
- Perform resisted adduction without significant pain
- Complete progressive running
- Perform lateral shuffles and cutting
- Execute tennis-specific lunges
- Push off explosively from both sides
- Complete a full-intensity practice without a significant increase in symptoms
A practical progression is:
Jogging → lateral movement → controlled court drills → full-speed footwork → full practice → competitive match
Returning too quickly can increase the risk of reinjury. A sports medicine professional should assess more severe injuries or symptoms that fail to improve.