Bid Data To Boost Winning Chances of Top-Tier ATP Tennis Players

Big data can bring changes in the coaching regimes of top-notch professional tennis players, which would give positive outcomes. It provides them apt information with would, in turn, aid them to uplift their tennis to the next level.

Craig O’Shannessy, official strategy analyst for both the ATP Tour and World Number two, Novak Djokovic says that, if the data is optimally used, it can bring remarkable changes in the match results and support the players to win matches.

“When I first started working with Novak, at the 2017 Australian Open, I sat down with him and said, ‘Listen, I do a lot of different things, how can I best help you?’ The first thing he pointed to was video, the ability to see himself play and the ability to see the best patterns of play,” O’Shannessy told ZDNet.

O’Shannessy relies on the tools from Tennis Analytics, a big-data specialist, who is employed to provide the match and technical analysis (such facilities are available to the top players). He believes, if video and analytics technology is used wisely, tennis coaching can become much more refined.

He continued to highlight the advantages of technology and tennis. “We need to remember where our sport has come from in order to know also where it’s going to,” he mentioned. “Before 1991, we weren’t counting anything – we didn’t have analytics. Now, I can use technology to focus on player performance. I want to put numbers to everything and that’s the route that I want the technology to continue to take.”

“Every guy that Novak plays, I have video and analytics on, so there are no more surprises coming from the other side of the court. So, is it worth one point a match? Absolutely. Is it worth two? For sure it’s worth two points. I’d say in a three-set match, it’s worth more in the range of five to 10 points,” he added.

At ATP World Tour Finals 2019 in London, O’Shannessy strategized Djokovic’s game with the aid of data available. He chiefly uses the Infosys Tennis Platform (which is being used for the first time in 2019 across the ATP Tour, which is the worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals).

In that, the players and coaches can access advanced analytics and match videos. In the portal, the big data and videos of game-changing points are synced with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The tennis professionals and their team can access more than 100 filters in over 1,000 combinations where they can analyze the performance, strengths, and weaknesses of their opponents.