Classic Wimbledon hides high-tech gadgets
Tue 28 Jun, 2:25 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Wimbledon may conjure up traditionally English images of
strawberries and cream but the tennis tournament is harnessing the latest
technology for both players and public.
Competitors still wear classic white but they now rely on high tech analysis
to see how they lost a match or how to take advantage of the weaknesses of
an opponent.
This year Wimbledon has added a range of new high technology features,
including wired and wireless Internet-based telephone calls for the
organisers that help keep walkie talkie radio waves free and the grounds
clear of unnecessary cabling.
Security personnel carry wireless Internet-enabled handheld computers
on which they can watch the games, helping them with the exact timing
at which they need to usher players to the courts.
A 'shot tracker', used by broadcasters to replay critical umpire calls,
has been made available to all visitors to the wimbledon.org Web site.
The technology creates a three dimensional animated image of every rally
of the main games.
Added to an avalanche of other match data that is already being collected
by specialised score keepers, shot tracker gives coaches and players even
more insight.
"We had a player here who won 90 percent of points on the first service
and only 27 percent on the second service. That is disastrous. This system
picks up on all the second serves and can show what was going on," said
Keith Sohl, a tennis and technology consultant for Wimbledon.
"Or you can look where Tim Henman generally puts his second service in the
sixth game of a set," he adds, referring to the No. 1 British player who
went out against unknown Russian Dmitry Tursunov in the second round last
Thursday.
MORE NUMBERS TO ANALYSE
Some coaches come to collect the match statistics a few minutes after the
match is over, which reflects how the game has developed since a decade ago
when keeping the score was the closest thing to data analysis, said Chris
Lee, Wimbledon Project Director at IBM, who coordinates the technology
behind the event.
Shot tracker, also known as Hawkeye, was developed by British engineer
Paul Hawkins and has been used in other sports, such as cricket, for
several years.
Although the technology is accurate, professional tennis championship
organisers are not yet ready to use Hawkeye as a back-up for umpires.
New technology has already brought to bear the fallibility of umpires.
Courtside data collectors who keep track of how a service is being played
and how points are scored, have already had to 'correct' their accurate
scores after wrong calls from the referee, said Sohl.
"The umpire is the highest authority," he said.
Shot tracker, live scoreboards and other innovations help Wimbledon remain
a top destination for Web surfers, as the All England Lawn Tennis Club aims
to boost profits that can be pumped back into the development of young
tennis players.
During the two weeks of the championships, the normally dormant green and
purple Wimbledon Web site pulls in close to 40 million visitors.
This year, a record 800,000 visitors viewed a total 23 million pages on
the third day of competition. The three massive Internet farms of computers
that are made available for the two weeks of the tournament were running
at 70 percent of their capacity.
For American employees, at work while games are played in the afternoon
and evenings in Britain, the Web site is often the only way to follow
the score. Web site traffic drops sharply over the weekend, when fans
can watch television, the organisers said.
Technology is also helping commentators such as former champion John
McEnroe to impress viewers with quick statistics, previous performance
and new records.
A team of anonymous tennis connoisseurs is constantly digging through a
mountain of information to serve commentators from around the world the
most relevant graph after each point in the game. This remains mostly
unseen by the television audience who may be stunned by the in-depth
commentary.
FROM:http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/050628/2/bwbi.html
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