Mike Lawrence/USTA
Over the course of a Grand Slam tournament, professional tennis players will spend hours on the court. Traditionally, coaches have had to rely on things like posture and facial expressions to evaluate players' endurance. But now, technology is getting in the game.
A new tool developed by IBM and the USTA uses artificial intelligence and analytics to quantify physical exertion. With Coach Advisor, coaches will have access to timely data about their players' energy levels and ways to improve it. It's an evolution of the work that IBM and the USTA have been doing at the US Open for nearly 30 years, according to Elizabeth O'Brien, the Program Director for IBM's Sports and Entertainment Partnerships.
"Every year we think about what kind of innovation we can bring that would have a meaningful impact," O'Brien said. When the USTA made a bigger push into player development a few years ago, O'Brien said it was a natural fit for IBM's technology.
Coaches can help their players improve in new ways
"A key factor in player performance was energy management, which is a fancy way of saying, 'How are they managing how tired they are?'" O'Brien said. "It wasn't something that had ever been quantified or measured."
IBM worked with the USTA to quantify two energy systems: mechanical load ("think sprints, where you get breathless just watching," O'Brien said) and physiological load, or players' endurance over time.
"Watching those loads, as we evaluate more data, we understand where particular players' ranges are, the sweet spot where they're not over-exerting themselves," she said. "Then we look for when player's effort levels go above or below their range."
That data is then correlated with traditional tennis statistics and paired with video in a player development portal. Coaches can drill down to a specific moment in a match to better understand what made it a success or a failure. Ultimately, this data can offer insights on how to better optimize training regimens and schedules.
Collaboration made Coach Advisor possible
Coach Advisor will make its Grand Slam debut during this year's US Open, but O'Brien noted that the tool is "not a tournament-based solution. The goal is to help [coaches] be more effective in training, developing, and recognizing emerging talent. If you do that well, you're going to drive players deeper into more tournaments and create more champions."
IBM built the tool with significant involvement not just from the USTA but from players and coaches who provided first-hand feedback about what insights would be especially useful.
"One of the things we're really excited about is the [ability for] coaches to search for KPIs that they want on their players and to be able to cross-reference those KPI's across matches," said Martin Blackman, General Manager of USTA Player Development. "They can look at matches on a particular surface, in a particular tournament and develop customized reports for players."
For starters, the Coach Advisor is open to a select group of coaches and players, but Blackman said the next phase of the rollout will be open to all 29 USTA coaches, as well as the private coaches of all the top American pros and transition pros. That will give about 200 US players and their coaches access to the Coach Advisor insights.
"It's an added value and service to the private coaches of top players. Ultimately, that will strengthen the relationship between the private sector and the USTA," he said, adding that many of those coaches also coach our top junior players. "If each coach has another 10 top prospects, you can imagine what the multiplier effect [of this technology] will be in elevating coaching education and enhancing development."
The future of AI in tennis
Both O'Brien and Blackman see Coach Advisor's potential as virtually limitless - not just for the players it can reach, but for the data it can tap into and the new training methods that can be developed. They stress that it won't just help individual US tennis players improve, but it can also dramatically increase the capacity of the USTA overall. Before this tool, O'Brien said the USTA's relatively small staff had to manually process match data, which left less time for player development. Blackman agreed, noting how much more capacity the USTA will have once some of the tasks are automated.
"It's going to free up our coaches and analysts to ask more questions and dive into some of the nuances around every player's game style that can't necessarily be translated into a template," he said. "Ultimately, the goal is to change the culture, elevate coaching education, and use the insights to develop more players who can go deep into Grand Slams. That's always been the North Star with this project."
To learn more about how IBM is partnering with the USTA at the US Open and across all of US tennis, visit www.ibm.com/sports/usopen/.
This post is sponsor content from IBM and was created by IBM and Insider Studios.