Tennis Technology and Training
The Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Federation Cup) Finals was conducted in Prague a couple of weeks ago. One of the first time innovations was near real-time data analytics provided to each team. The technology was a collaboration between Microsoft, the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and other coaching experts including Billie Jean King herself.
In a press release prior to the competition, the analytics included on the device were to include serve patterns, return of serve, and general court coverage. Additionally, a whiteboard function could be used to provide additional observations.
The tablet made a quick appearance during the match between Shelby Rogers and Viktoria Kuzmova. With the first set score knotted at 4-4, 15-15, a close up of one of the analytics tablet devices in the United States player area was aired on the Tennis Channel.
It was quite possibly a contrived example. One of the US coaches had used the whiteboard feature to indicate that Rogers needed to take away the T. The analytics indicated that the majority of Kuzmova’s serves were hit to that location. Presumably that information was provided to Rogers at the next change over prior to Kuzmova serving for the set.
It is not clear that the information on serve location helped Rogers. Kuzmova held serve to win the set 6-4. She also won the second set with an identical score. Maybe the whiteboard annotations on the Slovakian device said “You’re hitting too many serves up the T!!”
Cool analytics, though.
- Microsoft Powers Data and Insight at Billie Jean King Cup Finals, Billie Jean King Cup Press Release, October 28, 2021.
