Babolat Premiers Revolutionary “Play & Connect” Racquet at the French Open

Written by: Staff on 30th May 2012

Babolat Premiers Revolutionary “Play & Connect” Racquet at the French Open |

Babolat is presenting the prototype of the first interactive racquet with organized demonstrations featuring amateurs and pros from Team Babolat including Rafael Nadal and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at Roland Garros. With “Babolat Play & Connect” the specialized brand is trying to take tennis into a new era.

“This is a connected and communicating racquet that will give players information they can use to improve performance or just have fun sharing with other passionate tennis players,” said Eric Babolat, Chairman and CEO.

Three major features of Babolat Play & Connect include:

INFORM: Which permits players to obtain pertinent information for analyzing their game. For example, the qualification of strokes, spin, the position of the ball on the string bed, power during play and service speed are among the types of information that the sensors will relay. Information regarding the duration of the session, the length of play and the intensity of play will also be available.

IMPROVE: Players can set goals, follow and compare data daily. The raw data and data points are a new source of information for coaches or instructors and also for players who will be able to analyze their game.

SHARE: The advantage of having a connected racquet is that players can post data on a social network either for challenging their own performance, playing just for fun or for sharing information with friends and other players.

“The Babolat Play & Connect racquet is a tremendous tool,” said Nadal. “Having this new technology to capture information from my matches will mean a new way of analyzing my game.”

For its technological partner, Babolat has chosen Movea, leader in capturing and analyzing movements. The primary objective was to create a racquet identical to a standard model, with no change to the sensations during play. The racquet handle is equipped with sensors that record the flow of data. Once the training session or match is over, players can transfer and read the captured information on a computer, tablet or smartphone with a wireless connection or USB.

Topics: Babolat interactive racquet, Babolat news, Babolat Play & Connect, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Rafael Nadal, tennis games, Tennis News