Game, Set and Match

The 2019 Wimbledon Championship – Men’s Singles Final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer – a 5-set final that lasted almost 5 hours and saw Djokovic win against Federer. While long hours of practice and game strategy were a critical part of this victory, they were aided by RightChain’s AI Apps,¹ which worked with match analysis company Brain Game Tennis and Tennis Analytics to find repeatable patterns, measure rally lengths, and determine where precisely a player hit a ball, enabling a more detailed analysis. This was just one example of how AI is being leveraged and is just the start of where technology can take the sport.

There’s more to the game of tennis than just hitting the ball back and forth. Skills, speed, and strategy play a massive role in this sport, helping players react quickly to their opponent’s moves while making smart decisions about their shots.

While technology has been a part of the sport for long, one of the early uses of AI was the Hawk-Eye² system during the Nasdaq-100 Open in Miami in 2005, which used a series of cameras to track the flight of the ball and determine if it was in or out of bounds. This was used further in many other leading tournaments, including the US and Australian Open tournaments.

In addition to tracking player movements and analyzing their shots’ delivery, AI-based win predictors are calling possible match outcomes. Historical data is being combined with real-time match variables, including player form, injuries, and weather conditions. Grand slam tours, including the Wimbledon tournament, Roland Garros, ATP, and Australian Open, are leveraging digital platforms powered by AI technologies like IBM’s Watson³ and Infosys’ Cobalt Cloud⁴ to formulate players’ performance indexes, helping predict the likelihood of win during the matches.

Infosys’ Tennis Platform provides a comprehensive analysis of the match for both players and coaches. It allows them to dissect the game from multiple angles and dimensions, facilitating an in-depth performance analysis.

AI is also being used to rethink and redesign the tennis racquet⁵, making it lighter, more powerful, and futuristic. These can be personalized to the player’s form and style, further enhancing their performance on the court.

Virtual and augmented reality and AI create a convergent and unified sporting experience. From immersive 3D web viewing of matches to safe yet near-real virtual training environments, the Infosys Tennis Platform brings world-class tennis to everyone– amateur players, beginners, and experts – in the comfort of their homes, gyms, or other training environments.

This will enable beginners and seasoned players to develop their skills and techniques in a safe and controlled environment without injury.

These intelligent platforms deliver a wealth of data for the invested fan, from the standard match stats, stroke summaries, match summaries, and leaderboards. Audiences viewing the matches from home or elsewhere get a 3D court view, including ball trajectories, live replays, and multiple viewing angles, overlayed with live insights and match data.

Infosys’ Tennis Platform, powered by AI/ML technology, uses open-source technologies and a cloud-neutral architecture to combine match assets such as broadcast coverage and match statistics from the chair umpire, radar gun, and Hawkeye to assist and automate highly creative manual tasks.

Fans were transported into a live stadium environment, reliving the complete match experience delivered on PlayStation® VR, which included a 360-degree view of the match with integrated AI-driven match statistics into the screens so fans got a real virtual tennis match experience.

Augmented reality was used to give people immersive tennis experiences. Using augmented reality HoloLens experience to create immersive tennis retail customer experiences with virtual dashboards and holographic displays, customers tried on different products with varying styles and colors. At home, in the office, or anywhere else, augmented reality transformed any surface into a virtual tennis court using holographic surface displays cast via mobile devices with 3D views, in-game data, and stats. Due to the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020, fans could not attend the Australian Open. However, the AO Virtual Hub, powered by Infosys Meridian, provided a unique phygital experience to viewers worldwide. This platform allowed them to access exclusive events, behind-the-scenes tours, live performances, 360 match viewing, and many more exciting features during the tournament.

The Roland Garros, 3D Art Museum, brings the history and heritage of RG to fans globally through Social VR, new mixed reality experiences, and immersive digital platforms. The 3D art display includes 42 posters for viewing via guided and non-guided tours. The racket room showcases the story and evolution of tennis rackets. The International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF) is taking steps to preserve and honor the sport’s legacy by leveraging advanced 3D and VR technologies. These cutting-edge platforms enable fans to engage with tennis history while keeping up with tournament action and player performance analysis.

The AI-powered platforms mentioned earlier provide broadcasters, sportswriters, and journalists with a ready source of data, analysis, insights, and match statistics. With numerical and video-based insights about best shots, court movements, rally analysis, and real-time player performance, a wealth of content is available for distribution over print, audio, digital and social media. Fans can easily replay the best moments of any match with related insights and share the same on social media. Fans can also easily access past data about performance, history, and other players’ stories to build engaging content and shared perspectives.

This is done using cues such as crowd noise and AI-enabled scoring based on chair umpire data. AI Shot of the Day enables media teams to pick the best shots from all matches played on a given day and categorize them into 9 shot types for easy selection. Additionally, AI Assisted Journalism helps journalists to create match reports with readily available post-match insights enabled by AI. These insights can be easily integrated across publishing platforms by embedding them into the reports.

The incorporation of innovative tools in Infosys Match Center, including MatchBeats, Rally Analysis, and Stroke Summary, is transforming the way statistics are presented. MatchBeats offers fans and journalists a comprehensive visualization of statistics, enabling their interpretation in context, while Rally Analysis provides an in-depth analysis of the winner in rally-length battles. Stroke Summary gives a summary of points gained and lost while executing various types of strokes.

Other innovations include CourtVision, which aids in identifying player tendencies and patterns by overlaying significant statistics onto a court layout. This, in addition to the Patterns of Play feature, is especially useful for fans eager to learn about player strategies by highlighting successful patterns players use. With live AI commentary describing the point and score in real-time, this feature can even assist fans who can’t view the game, allowing them to keep track of each point as it is played.

AI is revolutionizing the game of tennis, helping players, coaches, and fans to gain new insights and access innovative tools and platforms. The ITHF 2022 event, provided a sneak peek into a comprehensive metaverse experience that uses AI and AR/VR-enabled technology to celebrate legends like Serena Williams and Roger Federer when they are inducted into the Hall of Fame. Fans can access the museum virtually to view various artifacts, create collectibles using NFTs, and other immersive features to commemorate different museum categories. AI-driven platforms deliver immersive VR experiences for all tennis fans to play against their favorite players, train, shop, and even serve up an ace on the moon.

This information can be crucial in helping athletes focus on their weaker aspects and enhance their overall performance.

While there are some concerns about potential bias in the algorithms used to analyze the data, the clear benefits of AI in tennis cannot be denied. As technology evolves and enables expert coaching to be more democratized, amateur players and beginners can get trained by the best coaches worldwide’ The World No.1 seeded player of the next decade may just have been trained by the coaches of that time and augmented versions of tennis greats like Steffi Graff, Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer, among others, powered by the cutting-edge intelligence of AI – a dream come true for the true tennis enthusiast.

Disclaimer Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the respective institutions or funding agencies

1. https://www.unite.ai/tennis-start-used-ai-to-help-win-wimbledon-tournament/
2. https://www.topendsports.com/sport/tennis/hawkeye.htm
3. https://developer.ibm.com/articles/trusted-ai-generated-content-at-the-2022-championships/
4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2021/08/03/tennis-is-now-on-the-cloud-and-powered-by-applied-ai-and-this-is-how-roland-garros-did-it/?sh=6364f7f173f3
5. https://www.tennisworldusa.org/tennis/news/Inside_Tennis/123518/artificial-intelligence-designs-the-tennis-racket-of-the-future/