Minimum shutter speed for freezing action like sports or water?

Simple answer - IT DEPENDS. Basically this another question which has no specific answer (a lot of questions in photography like that).

Water and sports have different speeds depending on the circumstances or the sports.

Try freezing the action in a squash court (including the racket and ball) and you will need a very fast speed, whereas you will need a lot slower to catch the jumper in a basketball shot.

It is perfectly possible to "freeze" the action in a sports shot at a speed of 1/60 or 1/30 if you are panning but it depends on a number of factors.

This was taken at 1/3200

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1115/4742068041/

this one at 1/800

http://www.flickr.com/photos/northpointphoto/47541...

this one at 1/200

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20238451@N00/48142503...

Same with water, it will be easier to freeze the water in a slow moving river than it will be on a fast moving rapids or breaking wave.

This one for instance was done at 1/640

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosz/2287112249/me...

This one at 1/1000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doublejeopardy/227351...

And this one at 1/125

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14508691@N08/42386090...

And a mixture of sports and water taken at 1/4000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maapu/1555893266/

So as you can see - it depends.

How close are you to the action? At what focal length are you shooting? These factors can affect how the image comes out. The closer you are the faster your shutter speed needs to be. The longer the lens, the faster as well. I would go for twice the focal length as a rule and increase that by a stop if you are really close to the action/movement.

You can also freeze motion with a slower shutter speed & use flash - this is the technique often used for water drops.

Flash duration is around 1/10,000 sec and it is this which freezes motion not the shutter speed.

I do believe 2000 is the minimum