Tennis fans can keep up to date with all the latest action at this year’s Wimbledon 2024 Tennis Championships thanks to a new AI-powered tool.
Tournament organizers the All-England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) have unveiled their new Catch Me Up tool, powered by IBM’s Watsonx generative AI platform, in a bid to bring fans closer to every match – even if they’re not at the be a tournament.
Catch Me Up uses Watsonx’s generative AI to create player-based updates in the form of ‘cards’ available on the Wimbledon.com website or mobile app, which provide brief commentary on their progress throughout the championships, which start on July 1.
Pick me up
Speaking at a media briefing ahead of this year’s tournament, attended by Ny BreakingChris Clements, Digital Products Lead at the AELTC, noted that 650 million fans from around the world engage with Wimbledon in some way during the tournament.
However, some of the more interesting or less heralded stories are often missed, especially during the first few days of the tournament when there is simply so much action taking place.
Kevin Farrar, head of Sport Partnerships at IBM UK, explained that the model is able to ingest trusted ‘structured’ tournament data alongside ‘unstructured’ external sources (namely the analytics site Sportsradar) to learn from it and provide the most accurate summaries to give.
He added that the launch should help give attention or focus to some of the lesser-known players, especially in competitions such as the junior or wheelchair tournaments, which typically start once the more high-profile draws have reached their own later stages.
For that extra special touch, Clements noted that the model used for Catch Me Up was specially trained in the tone of Wimbledon (for example, ensuring the draws are referred to as ‘Gentleman’s’ and ‘Ladies’ rather than men and women as is the case at other grand openings).
The launch comes as IBM releases new research showing that the majority of tennis fans believe technology such as generative AI will have a positive impact on the sport.
The survey of more than 18,000 fans found that more than half (55%) thought the technology would deliver benefits, while 75% said they believed it would have a positive impact in areas such as game strategy, coaching and talent identification and acquisition.