Every Tuesday, this site looks at a training or technology concept that shapes how tennis is played. One recurring feature in this series draws inspiration from the Tennis Channel’s “Bag Check.” These videos are sometimes thinly veiled product placement photo ops for the racquets, shoes, grips, and other equipment that professional players carry onto the court. I’m typically more interested in the less obvious items buried somewhere in the bag.
Recreational players don’t need to duplicate everything someone who plays tennis for a living carries in their bags. At the same time, professionals spend an enormous amount of time training, competing, and traveling. Occasionally, something in the bag opens a tiny window into their mindset or process.
This week’s video features the Ukrainian player Illya Marchenko. The video was posted about 15 years ago and appears to have been filmed at Indian Wells. Marchenko played there in both 2010 and 2011, which gives a reasonable estimate of when it was recorded.
Marchenko reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of No. 49 and had his best Grand Slam result at the 2016 US Open, where he advanced to the fourth round. His Wikipedia page says that he retired in 2025, but he posted matches at an ITF M25 tournament in Turkiye in January of this year.
Among the contents of his bag is something that would be unremarkable in a briefcase, but less expected in a tennis racquet bag: a laptop computer. More specifically, Marchenko pulls out a Sony VAIO. I once carried a VAIO as my corporate laptop, which makes the video feel even more like a technological artifact from another era, at least for me. Marchenko describes himself as a “computer guy” and explains that he uses the laptop to Skype with friends and family and for entertainment online.
A laptop made considerable sense for a touring player when this video was likely shot. Smartphones existed, but they had not yet absorbed nearly as many computing tasks as they have today. Staying in visual contact with people at home while traveling internationally generally meant opening a computer and launching something like Skype. Watching online video or doing much of anything computationally demanding also favored the larger machine.
However, a computer in a tennis bag has potential uses beyond communication and entertainment. Even then, a player could use a laptop to watch match video, maintain training information, review statistics, or study an opponent. The available tools were considerably less convenient than what we have now, but the basic idea of using computing technology to support preparation was already possible.
That capability has changed substantially during the intervening years. A laptop still provides advantages for working with large video files or performing detailed analysis, but much of the computing power a tennis player needs now fits in a pocket. Smartphones can record high-quality video, play it back immediately, access match statistics, and communicate with coaches or teammates. Some of the processing that once required substantial local computing power can also be performed remotely using cloud services.
For recreational players, video analysis is probably the most useful application of computing devices. When I was a kid, tennis camps and academies could attract players with video analysis that wasn’t otherwise available. Now players can record themselves and review stroke mechanics, court positioning, movement, or recurring patterns instantaneously. Match video can also become a scouting tool. If footage of a future opponent exists, even a few games may reveal tendencies in serve location, return position, preferred patterns, or court positioning.
The same technology also makes it easier to involve someone else in that analysis. Video can be sent to a coach rather than requiring the coach to attend or stream the match. Doubles partners can review positioning or discuss patterns before the next time they play together. Captains can exchange information with players. None of those tasks requires a laptop anymore, although I personally still prefer a larger screen when I am doing serious video review.
Marchenko’s old Sony VAIO therefore represents something that has changed considerably while remaining conceptually relevant. Professional tennis players need tools to stay connected while traveling and information to help them prepare for competition. Recreational players have many of the same needs on a smaller scale.
Fifteen years ago, satisfying them might have required carrying a laptop in the tennis bag. Today, most of us already walk onto the court with the necessary computer in our pocket. The more useful question is what we do with it.
