SAP Data Mining For WTA, Coaches And Fans

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 28th October 2013

SAP Data Mining For WTA, Coaches And Fans

epa03840768 A group of wet tennis balls sits on an outer court chair on the third day of the 2013 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 28 August 2013. The US Open runs through Monday 09 September, a 15-day schedule for the first time. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO |

SAP is continuing to innovate with the WTA in a global relationship to help provide players, coaches, fans and the media with insights through interactive analytics underpinned by the SAP HANA platform.

SAP worked closely with the WTA to develop tools that can enhance the sport. SAP will provide media new interactive dashboard for the WTA that tracks player performance at various tournaments. The dashboard created for WTA offers access to detailed historical information that complements the head-to-head information provided by the WTA.

Coaches are now able to receive post-match point-by-point analysis, allowing them to focus on the subtle differences and technique variations that players use throughout a match.

“We chose women’s tennis, because it gives us the opportunity to be able to engage with the athlete at different times,” said SAP Solution Architect, Jenni Lewis. “So we are looking at building out the story in matches to be able to deliver information to the athlete, but also, more importantly, with [the media] here as well. So the next phase of our journey really is to work with the media and then also with the fans about the information. What we find with tennis, there is so much information, and what we need to be able to deliver is the insight that goes with that information.

Then we start to have the story as opposed to people having to troll through watching hours and hours of match footage, fans looking at all these statistics and not being able to understand what’s going on. What we wanted to do was work with the WTA and the player community to start to really identify what key things they wanted us to deliver and then ultimately start delivering that information through to the media and on to the fan as well.”

Not only does the SAP HANA platform allow coaches to dissect their player’s game, it can also be used to analyze other players and help develop an optimal strategy for each opponent. Information can now be tailored specifically to the player and coaches’ individual needs.

“An increased understanding of my player and her opponent’s game can give me an edge that could mean the difference between winning and losing,” said Tomask Wiktorowski, coach of No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska. “The ability to access SAP data is making a real difference to the way coaches work. We can now provide our players with more strategic advice, improving their preparation and ultimately on court performance.”

In stadia, fans will experience visually engaging key statistics on their favorite players. The big screens will showcase player improvements, comparisons and key statistics on the leading players competing.

SAP is taking its expertise in business to the business of sports, with an aim to transform the sports experience by enhancing and evolving how data is consumed and ultimately used to make decisions, influence and envision new possibilities.

“I was looking for that kind of solution for many, many years,” said Patrick Mouratoglou. “When you work as a coach, the first thing that you need is to have the correct information. We all have our own perception when we start working with a player, and we are all very sure that we are right, but it’s always better to be 100% sure as all the decisions that we are gonna take, they are gonna have a very important impact on the player’s future. When we watch a match, we all have our own perception of tennis, and we all have emotions, those two things that just make the distortion between reality and what we perceive as being the reality.

So I have always been making stats by myself, with my pen and my paper, on all the matches of my player and all the matches of the other players. It takes a lot of hours. All this time that we lose we don’t spend doing other things that we should spend like analyzing, planning, and working on a tennis court. So I see this new technology as a really, really big step for us being a top sport.”

Topics: 10sballs.com, Patrick Mouratoglou, Sap, SAP HANA, Tennis, Tennis News, Wta

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evwelsh says:

October 28, 2013 at 9:46 am

RT @10sBalls_com: SAP Data Mining For WTA, Coaches And Fans: SAP continuing to innovate with the WTA http://t.co/7ql7PI62Y9