The oldest tennis tournament – the Wimbledon Championships (simply known as Wimbledon) – will introduce artificial intelligence-based audio commentary and player analysis for this year’s competition. 

The initiative comes after a collaboration between International Business Machines (IBM) and The All England Lawn Tennis Club.

New Feature for Fans

As revealed by IBM, the upcoming tool will allow tennis enthusiasts to observe key moments of matches with audio commentary. The feature aims to give them a more “insightful experience” when following the tournament. IBM partnered with The All England Lawn Tennis Club to train the AI with the rules and specifics of tennis.

In addition, the company will launch the IBM AI Draw Analysis. Once again, it will be based on artificial intelligence and will determine each player’s chances to reach the final according to their recent performance and current ranking.

Jonathan Adashek – Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications – said the innovative feature could help major sporting events like Wimbledon to increase their audience via incorporating digital experiences. 

“The AI and data platform that IBM is using to create unique fan experiences for Wimbledon is the same technology that we’re using to drive business transformation with clients across all sectors and industries,” he added.

Usama Al-Qassab – Marketing and Commercial Director of The All England Club – said the collaboration with IBM aims to provide additional experiences to Wimbledon fans all over the globe:

“This year, we’re introducing new features for our digital platforms that use the latest AI technology from IBM to help fans gain even more insight into the singles draw and access commentary on a wider variety of matches through our match highlights videos.”

Arguably the most prestigious tennis championship in the world – Wimbledon – will start on July 3, whereas the big final is on July 16. It is 146 years old and takes place in London. 

Australia Open’s Efforts

Another major tennis tournament that offered digital experiences is Australian Open. It teamed up with Decentraland in January last year to enable fans to watch matches and attend the main stadium Rod Laver Arena even without being physically located in “The Land Down Under.”

The virtual reality platform also released a collection of 6,776 non-fungible tokens called “Art Ball NFTs.” Interestingly, each digital collectible represented a winning shot from all matches from the 2022 championship.