Tennis Serve vs Baseball Pitching

Tennis players and baseball players especially pitchers are called "overhead" athletes because of the way they throw the ball and serve. Tommy John surgery in baseball pitchers is one of the most talked about injury in all sports right next to concussion these days. However, we do not hear anything in tennis players. There are a lot of similarities between baseball pitching and tennis serve, and they both suffer similar shoulder injuries. But why don't tennis players suffer Tommy John injury?! Everyone that watches or plays baseball has heard of "pitch count", however, we don't hear about "serve count" Let's take a look at how many pitches a starting pitcher throws in a month. They usually get 5-6 starts a month and they pitch around 100 pitches per start. So that's roughly 500-600 pitches per month discounting bullpen sessions they do between starts. Tennis players' serve count varies depending on how many matches they win in a tournament. After looking at 250 Grand Slam matches from 2014-2016, male tennis players served 140-150 times a match on average. Those players that advanced to the round of 16 played 4 matches in about a week. So that is 560-600 serves in a shorter period of time. A baseball is heavier than a tennis ball. Tennis players use a tennis racket. 

       One thing that stands out to me is that during baseball pitching pitchers shoulder is rotating at around 5-7000 degrees per second. On the other hand, tennis players shoulder are rotating at a lot slower speed (4-5000 degrees per second). The faster you move the shoulder, the more stress you are placing on the shoulder and elbow. Also, tennis players can use a tennis racket to serve harder than baseball pitchers can throw a baseball. 

       There is no study that explains why baseball pitchers suffer more Tommy John injury than tennis players. So we can  only speculate, but shoulder rotation speed may have something to do with it. Also, tennis players seem to suffer more wrist injuries than baseball pitchers. Tommy John injury is more common in athletes such as javelin throwers than tennis players. And studies suggested that softball pitchers suffer similar shoulder injuries to those suffered by baseball pitchers even though softball pitchers pitch underhand.......