In a groundbreaking move, Tennis Australia has made match analytics for the Australian Open accessible to the public, allowing fans to delve into the same detailed statistics that coaches, players, and sports journalists use. This initiative marks a significant step in enhancing the spectator experience by providing deeper insights into the game.
The advanced SlamTracker web application, powered by IBM’s private cloud infrastructure, processes an impressive 39 million data points collected from all four Grand Slam tournaments over the past seven years. This comprehensive data set offers a detailed analysis of players’ styles and performance trends. Additionally, the tool predicts the likelihood of a player winning against their opponent in each round of the tournament and highlights the ‘key to the match’ strategies essential for securing victory.
Samir Mahir, the Chief Information Officer at Tennis Australia, explained the collaboration with IBM: “We provided our extensive data to IBM, encompassing a decade of scores, statistics, matches, and player information. Our focus is on high performance, which necessitates data-driven analysis of our players’ games.”
The analytics tool available on the Australian Open’s official website mirrors the resources provided to sports journalists in the tournament’s media room. However, journalists have the added advantage of indexing each of the 38,000 data points recorded per game with corresponding video replays.
Since taking on the role of CIO at Tennis Australia in June last year, Mahir has prioritized enhancing analytics for fans and stakeholders. This is his second tenure managing IT for a major tennis event, having previously served as the IT director for the US Tennis Association in the late 1990s.
Mahir highlighted the evolution of technology’s role in such events, noting a shift towards real-time data and infrastructure reliability. “Technology underpins all aspects of event management, from ticketing and merchandising to transport and accreditation,” he stated.
In preparation for this year’s tournament, Tennis Australia has significantly upgraded its infrastructure. The cabling between multiple arenas in Melbourne has been increased from 23 to 35 kilometers, and on-site servers have been enhanced. The association has also bolstered its disaster recovery capabilities, utilizing IBM’s private cloud deployment and learning from the recent challenges faced during the US Open, which was affected by Hurricane Irene.
Patrick Childress, program manager in IBM’s real-time events team, shared insights from the US Open experience. The hurricane delayed the IT team’s access to the site until 6pm the day before the tournament began. Despite this setback, the team successfully reconfigured applications and web servers in IBM’s private cloud, ensuring live functionality by 11am on the first day.
The disaster recovery strategy, along with the tournament’s website and the SlamTracker application, relies heavily on IBM’s three data centers located in central and eastern US, complemented by a content delivery network for local caching. The infrastructure was set up last December by an internal IT team of 30, which is double its usual size, and supported by 45 on-site IBM contractors.
Additionally, services that were previously managed in-house, such as a free public Wi-Fi network for tournament attendees, have now been outsourced to Optus, further enhancing the overall experience for fans.