Using Technology To Improve Sportsmanship Awards in Tennis

Yesterday, I outlined the logic behind my personal belief that there is no such thing as superior sportsmanship in the moment. A player is either a good sport or they are not. However, I do think many players consistently embody that attribute across every match and situation. Occasionally, I come across an instance where someone goes above and beyond. However, consistency is what should be recognized and rewarded, rather than any specific action or behavior that essentially amounts to a single snapshot in time.

One of the most common ways sportsmanship awards are meted out in tennis is through pins or recognition at events. The idea seems sound on the surface because it meets the best practice that feedback is most effective when provided immediately. Unfortunately, those awards only capture a single moment. Pins are prevalent in junior tennis, and it has been several years since I was involved in that side of tournament play. However, I had several conversations about sportsmanship pins at the recent USTA Texas Summit, and I would summarize the general consensus that these tokens often devolve into little more than a popularity contest. Popularity should never be confused with sportsmanship.

For sportsmanship awards to actually mean something, the recognition has to come from a body of evidence, not a single impression. Fortunately, technology now makes that possible. Imagine if the USTA digital platform prompted every player to complete a simple evaluation of their opponent(s) whenever their match results are recorded and published. Three quick options would appear on the screen: a frown for poor sportsmanship, a neutral face for satisfactory behavior, and a smile for if something happened that exceeded expectations.

I believe that most of the time, players would simply hit the neutral face. That would signify that their opponent lived up to the baseline behavioral expectations of the sport. Nothing more and nothing less. However, choosing either the smile or the frown would prompt the evaluator to supply a brief reason. That extra step would train players to use the neutral option unless they truly had something meaningful to report, and when they did, the feedback would likely be valuable and impactful.

What is important here is the aggregation of all those data points rather than any single instance. Players who consistently score “OK” with a handful of above-and-beyond ratings would likely be the ones who rise to the top of the nomination list for sportsmanship awards. In fact, that list could be automatically generated from the collected data. One or two negative ratings shouldn’t be disqualifying, especially since the accompanying text could be analyzed for context. Processing that information is exactly the kind of space where a tennis-specific AI model could be trained to evaluate freeform responses, perform sentiment analysis, and determine whether positive or negative ratings align with actual sportsmanlike or unsportsmanlike behavior.

Patterns would emerge over time. For example, if one individual consistently flagged their opponents as poor sports while nobody else had the same experience, the system could identify that evaluator as an unreliable source. Their input could be weighted less (or excluded entirely) from nomination calculations. That reduces the chances of recognition being hijacked by bad actors with skewed perceptions. No one should be eliminated from consideration for a sportsmanship award because they once played a jerk who always thinks the other person is the problem. At the same time, if a player who thinks everyone is unsportsmanlike flags one particular opponent for superior behavior, that is probably a pretty good sign that their opponent is doing something right to avoid or diffuse drama.

The current USTA digital platform doesn’t support this kind of functionality, but I believe it’s something worth examining as a priority. Not only would it enhance the recognition of true sportsmanship, but it would also ensure that awards are not given to the wrong people simply because they had a good day the one time when someone armed with a sportsmanship pin was watching.

At its core, sportsmanship encompasses a range of behaviors and attitudes, as reflected in a series of individual data points. Every once in a while, someone goes above and beyond, but rarely do those isolated instances rise to the level of anything award-worthy. What matters most is consistency over time. If this kind of system were implemented, it would go a long way toward preventing popularity contest awards and instead recognize those who continually embody the courtesy that tennis demands. In other words, it would make sportsmanship much more sportsmanlike.