00:00This year, technology is also taking center court as more athletes turn to data and AI to improve their play.
00:06We spoke to IBM Senior Vice President Jonathan Adichek and retired American tennis pro Sam Query
00:11on how IBM's new app is changing the game and coaching and its games that match.
00:16We are so excited. I mean, this is our 35th year with the U.S. Open,
00:21and they've been such a great partner at working differently and trying new technologies.
00:26And this year, we've got a lot of amazing new features.
00:30First is the live updates. So think of it as your home page.
00:34When you log on to the app, you get what you want right away.
00:37You don't have to go navigate through.
00:39So it really gives you a much more engaging, quick, responsive experience.
00:45Then we've got serve quality.
00:46Serve quality, usually you've looked at serves and you just...
00:50Is this an objective measure?
00:52It is data-driven.
00:53It is data-driven. And, you know, Sam was a big server, right?
00:57We're going to get his take on this in a minute.
00:58And serve quality looks at 21 different points of the body,
01:03looking at the limb movement, looking at racket movements,
01:06putting that together and getting a serve quality score
01:09so that you can really understand, was that person hot?
01:12Were they cold? What was going on?
01:13More than just how many miles per hour that serve went.
01:17Then we've got the match chat feature, which is building on last year,
01:21where you could ask a question about what was going on.
01:24And this allows more natural language processing,
01:26but it's also bringing in photos and videos into the answers,
01:30which is really a next level of engagement on this.
01:33And finally, it's about key moments.
01:35Key moments is really looking beyond just the obvious,
01:38oh, they won this set.
01:40It's looking at how long was a rally?
01:42Did you get a big...
01:43Did a player get an ace to win a set?
01:46What are these moments, those more subtle moments,
01:48to give a better storyline to pull through
01:50so people can understand more of how the tide is changing in the match?
01:55I feel like this would be helpful for me.
01:57I do actually watch tennis,
01:58but all the other sports balls that my co-anchors watch
02:01that I do not when we have to recap the game,
02:03I could just read it off the AI and then be like,
02:05what were the key moments?
02:06And then I could pretend that I had watched the game,
02:08but I would never do that to you.
02:10Sam, when you played, I mean, it hasn't been that long,
02:13but I feel like the data has gotten so much more aggressive
02:16for all athletes in the last couple of years.
02:18Like, when you're serving,
02:20do you want me knowing exactly how good each one of your serves is,
02:23or would you rather people just kind of went off vibes?
02:27Well, if I'm serving the opponent,
02:29I don't have a choice in what they know.
02:31So I think a lot of times it comes down to the coach now.
02:34The coach will actually now use the IBM app.
02:37They'll go on the app, look at all the data points,
02:39and then maybe give their player two or three obvious points.
02:43Because as a player, I can't think about 15 to 20 different things
02:47if I'm returning or serving.
02:49That's where the coach comes in.
02:51If there's data that they can look at that's obvious,
02:53they can then give that to the player,
02:55and the player can kind of go with those three or four bullet points.
02:58But do you think anything gets lost?
03:00I mean, I know that the line calls now are kind of automated.
03:04I personally kind of miss people fighting over some of these.
03:08They still do?
03:08Do they still put it up for a close call?
03:12All right, it seems a lot less contagious than it used to be.
03:15But Sam, do you lose any of the naturalness of the game
03:20if you're getting too data-driven with some of this stuff?
03:23You know, no, I don't think.
03:26Look, the winner of the U.S. Open this year,
03:27they just put out yesterday, gets $5.5 million.
03:31You can't miss a line call by a few inches
03:33when there's that much money on the line.
03:36And going back to my previous point,
03:38yes, the data is nuts right now, right?
03:40You can have 1,000 different data points,
03:42and the players aren't going to look at all of it.
03:45But again, that's where it kind of comes down to the coach and the team.
03:48They can look at all of it
03:49and then decipher what they feel is important
03:52for a particular match or matchup,
03:55you know, for their particular player.
03:57But it's so nice for the coaches especially to have all this data,
04:01and they can really pull back the layers
04:03and kind of see, all right, going back to those key moments,
04:07what are the key moments of the matchup?
04:09You know, if you win a rally over 12 shots,
04:11is that going to help you?
04:12If you save a certain number of great points
04:14serving in this location, is that going to help you?
04:16So you're able to just get so much deeper in the information now,
04:20and that's so helpful once it trickles its way to the players.
04:23I'm going to describe this for our listeners
04:25and for those who may have missed it,
04:26but as Sam was talking, Jonathan,
04:27you had a very self-satisfied acknowledgement there
04:30of him saying that coaches are using the IBM platform here
04:35to kind of give tips to their players.
04:37I mean, that's pretty wild.
04:38I think if, you know, there's the kind of...
04:39Yeah, that's crazy.
04:40I thought it was mostly like a user experience.
04:42There's like the consumer-facing part of this,
04:43but it is pretty wild to think that this is kind of determining
04:44the way that people are coached in the middle of the tournament.
04:46You know, we're...
04:47I didn't mean that in a pejorative way, by the way.
04:49Yeah, it's okay.
04:50We are fortunate that we've got a great partner
04:54like the USTA, like the Open,
04:56that allows us to put this data together
04:57and give it to people.
04:59And I think to build on what Sam's talking about,
05:01where it also comes in handy is that night after,
05:05as they start thinking about who are they playing next.
05:08If you win, who are you playing next?
05:10Can you go back in and look at how somebody played the four?
05:14How did they do in that match?
05:15What were those key moments?
05:17How was their serve quality?
05:18So you can start thinking about that
05:20and get it in a much more concise fashion.
05:22Because as Sam said, the players have a tight focus of time,
05:27but if you think about the fans who are also watching,
05:29they're really focused
05:31and they've got a bunch of different competing things
05:33that once that match is over,
05:34they're off to looking at something else
05:36and they might step away in the middle of a match.
05:38How do you bring them back up to date very quickly
05:41with things like match chat
05:42and with likelihood to win,
05:43which I didn't talk about before,
05:45which we've had historically,
05:46but now this year with every point,
05:49the likelihood to win will change.
05:52So it's a much more dynamic
05:53versus just saying at the beginning of a match,
05:56so-and-so is going to have an 82%.
05:57Based on ranking or whatever.
05:59That's kind of a question kind of for both of you,
06:01but Sam, I'll start with you.
06:03What is the best part about being at the U.S. Open,
06:06playing at the U.S. Open?
06:07Like what makes it kind of a singular event?
06:09It's those nighttime matches.
06:11U.S. Open is known for the night matches,
06:13especially sometimes when they trickle into the next day,
06:16I guess you would say.
06:17You know, it goes into 12, 31 a.m.
06:19People are five, six, seven, honey deuces deep,
06:22and it has an atmosphere and an electricity
06:25that is like no other tournament around the world.
06:29When you get to play as a player
06:31in Arthrae Stadium at night,
06:33it feels like you're at a college football event
06:36in the South.
06:37It is just bigger than life,
06:39and so I think if you were to ask the players,
06:41where is the best tennis atmosphere in the world?
06:44It's in New York.
06:45It's at the U.S. Open,
06:46but particularly the night session there
06:48on Arthrae Stadium.
06:50Jonathan, we got about 90 seconds left.
06:51I love the excitement and the energy of the Open.
06:55I've been fortunate.
06:56I've gone to many of the Grand Slams,
06:57but that energy of the Open
06:58is really unlike anything else.
07:00I think you see it in a lot of different sports,
07:02and people just get into it,
07:04and as Sam talked about,
07:05there are plenty of these matches
07:06deeper into the tournament
07:08that go deep into the night,
07:11early morning hours,
07:12and the crowd still is there,
07:14and they are engaging and they love it,
07:16and the ability for us to bring that to people,
07:18whether you're sitting there
07:19or you're watching from home
07:21or you were there and then you left
07:23because you've got to get up for work
07:24the next morning,
07:25the app is a new way.
07:27We take this information to 14 million people
07:29around the world every year.
07:31We take this information to you by giving that the ballIT interview.
07:31Let's see.
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