Besides the revolution in advanced racket technology and its real impact on the speed of serves (witness a 155-mph blast from Andy Roddick), the age-old game of tennis hasn’t changed much. But behind the scenes, tennis is very much on the cutting edge of new technology, discussed in an interesting article published by BBC News.
The story focuses on the upcoming Wimbledon tournament, beginning July 5, and the bevy of geek action that goes into it:
Beneath the grass of Court 14 a series of hi-tech bunkers are practically throbbing with server towers, laptops and flatscreens, ready to collate, interpret and distribute endless data gathered from every match of the Wimbledon tournament.
Anyone who has watched professional tennis on television in the past few years has seen the computer-simulated shot-replay graphics, dubbed Hawk-Eye, which players can use (with limits, thankfully) to challenge calls made by the fallible line judge. But this article is more concerned with the collection of data and statistics for use by coaches and die-hard fans.
New for 2009 is a real-time mobile service aimed at younger fans, developed by IBM. It will send regular updates to fans via an application available to iPhone and Google Android phone users, including information such as daily schedules, score highlights, video highlights and even where the “loo” is.