Charles Sturt University (CSU) held its first graduation ceremonies in Sydney on Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 August, to recognise the achievements of graduates from the Faculty of Arts, Education, Science and Business.
Among them was Dr Alistair Murphy who was awarded his PhD, Load Monitoring in High Performance Youth Tennis Players: Preparation for Competition Readiness.
The 28 year old country boy from Yass, NSW started his studies at CSU Bathurst, studying Exercise Science, specialising in rehabilitation.
Dr Murphy also spent his Honours year at CSU Bathurst, researching the effects of alcohol consumption on the recovery of rugby league players.
“I caught the research bug and really enjoyed it, I had a good time during the research year,” Dr Murphy said.
He has since travelled the country and internationally with Tennis Australia, after being offered a PhD and intern position in his Honours year.
“I took the opportunity to move to Melbourne; I hadn’t been there before. I had never really left the country so that was a big step,” Dr Murphy said.
“I moved down there and didn’t know anyone, so I started fresh. I was there for a bit over two years.”
Dr Murphy was heavily involved with all of the high performance tennis coaches during his time with Tennis Australia in Melbourne, which he described as “pretty daunting at first to be honest.”
While working with Tennis Australia as a PhD intern, Dr Murphy was able to travel to Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Korea, to name a few countries.
“That was an amazing opportunity,” he said.
The findings of Dr Murphy’s PhD research will provide new information for high performance tennis players and their coaches about training intensity in preparation for tournaments.
He is proud to have graduated with a PhD in Exercise Science after nearly 10 years of studying.
Although currently working with high performance Tennis, Dr Murphy said he wouldn’t rule out branching into other high performance sport areas in the future.
Dr Murphy is currently the Strength and Conditioning Coach with the National Academy of Tennis in Adelaide.
