IBM Data Analysis Aids Players, Media And Fans

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 17th September 2013

IBM Data Analysis Aids Players, Media And Fans

epa02571952 A close-up view of a ball and racket seen at the Gaz de France WTA Open 2011 tennis tournament in Paris, France, 09 February 2011. EPA/IAN LANGSDON |

IBM has been involved with providing data to the Grand Slams for well over 15 years and believes that the work it has put into data analysis is beneficial to fans, the media, coaches and players. Moreover it sees major sporting events as a way to illustrate business applications and believes that by analyzing large amounts of data it can help players improve from good to great.

“ When data is captured and analyzed, hidden tendencies and patterns emerge that are keys to success not only in tennis, but also in business,’ says IBM’s Elizabeth O’Brien.

“For example, Andy Murray has been in the Top Four since 2008, but until 2012, he had never won a Grand Slam. In the last 18 months, he’s won the Olympics and has been in three of the last four Slam Finals, winning two, the 2012 US Open and 2013 Wimbledon. What changed? The obvious explanation would be to look at Murray’s serve, return and winners, but an analysis of the data reveals something subtler. When Murray’s consistency improved in high-pressure matches (quarterfinals through finals), he began to win tournaments, so the adjustment was more one of poise and patience than a change to his game.”

IBM also believes that the analysis of data predicts opportunistic strategies before matches. Its Slam Tracker is an analysis of eight years and 41 million data points of Grand Slam data. Its Keys to the Match determine the most important strategies that will help each player do well against specific opponents. Keys to the Match is tracked in real time for fans and the media to follow.

For the first time this year, Slam Tracker also tracked “the Twitter sentiment,” or how positive the tweets are for each player throughout the match.

While the US Open had more than 700,000 visitors in 2012, digital visitors exceeded 12 million. USOPen.org, which IBM helps run, spans six different desktop and mobile platforms, with 50 percent the traffic coming from mobile devices. The US Open iPad app, introduced in 2012, was downloaded more than 106,000 times with 7 million pages views. Last year more than 8.4 million videos were viewed via the interactive USOpen.org media console.

“Why do we partner with the USTA? The technology we use at the US Open is the same technology we use for clients across industries around the world, helping their results go from good to great,” O’Brien said. “And we’re already working on newer technology for next year.”

Topics: Andy Murray, Grand Slams, ibm, slam tracker, US Open, Usta