PlaySight Interactive, an innovative sports technology company and creators of an affordable, tennis analytic system, will showcase its product and offerings at a booth at The Tennis Show, Sunday August 24 at the Grand Hyatt in New York City.
In addition to showcasing itself to the tennis industry before the U.S. Open tennis championships, PlaySight is currently in the midst of a rapid expansion, installing “SmartCourts” at tennis clubs, tennis academies and private tennis courts around the world, including the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland, the Nun’s Island tennis club in Montreal, Canada, the Bonita Bay club in Naples, Florida, the Bay Club in San Francisco, Calif., and the Norwegian Tennis Federation among others.
World No. 1 and reigning Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic heads a list of impressive group of investors in the technology, also including tennis legend Billie Jean King, renowned performance coach Dr. James Loehr, Pershing Capital Management LLC Founder Bill Ackman, Entrepreneur and Washington Kastles owner Mark Ein, Former ProServ Founder Ray Benton, CourtSense owner Gordon Uehling, III and former Wall Street executive James Kern.
PlaySight‘s SmartCourt is an affordable, proprietary technology that is easily installed at tennis facilities and private courts. The SmartCourt provides players with professional real time (and post session) match statistics, analytics, line-calling and video. SmartCourt’s combined capabilities dramatically enhance the tennis-playing experience and greatly improve training and coaching efficiency. Using five HD cameras, PlaySight’s SmartCourt automatically classifies and tags all the events that take place during a session without the need for court-side operators or wearable sensors. Players can watch selected events (e.g. every backhand down the line that went long), with no need to watch the whole video or manually tag it. PlaySight is also able to record 3D tactical game management information including the height of balls over the net, speed of every shot and the depth of balls hit within the court. The SmartCourt is easily operated by the players through a courtside kiosk and all video and data can be shared within seconds with coaches, friends and family at remote locations. Players can also track distance covered and calories burned during a match or practice session.
Each player’s activity and motion during the entire match/training are automatically recorded, analyzed and uploaded into PlaySight.com – a social network for players/athletes where they can review their performance and share it with their coaches, friends and family. Parents, coaches and friends can also watch matches remotely in real time via PlaySight. Each SmartCourt comes with a built in HD video streaming capabilities that allows for tournaments to be viewed electronically. In addition, PlaySight technology is able to measure the spin of the ball in every stroke that is hit. To see how the system works, watch the PlaySight video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrp9X3K82Ek
“The game of tennis is a lot more than just how you hit the ball, but where it goes, what your opponent does with it and what kind of patterns you are creating,” said PlaySight CEO Chen Shachar. ”Playsight provides the opportunity for both players competing to be analyzed simultaneously and provides a deep understanding of what is going on in the match. We are excited to bring this affordable technology to as many facilities and players as we can to improve the tennis-playing experience.”
PlaySight’s SmartCourt technology is already installed at a number of prestige venues including Roland Garros in Paris (home of the French Tennis Federation), CourtSense Tennis Training Center in New Jersey, Queens Club in London, Stefan Edberg’s academy in Sweden, Holland’s Laurense Tennis Academy (the training center for legendary coach Sven Groeneveld) and Ramat Hasharon tennis center in Israel. PlaySight has already installed a total of 50 SmartCourts globally, including 31 in the United States. The company installed its first collegiate court at The University of Georgia, and is scheduled to install a more than 100 SmartCourts in Florida, California, New York and at other locations around the world in the near future.
Held in conjunction with the Tennis Teachers Conference and on the eve of the 2014 US Open, The Tennis Show 2014 is a rare opportunity for the tennis industry—including teaching professionals and coaches, retailers, facility owners/managers, manufacturers and players—to celebrate and discuss the business of tennis. The show, which is managed by the TIA, will open in the Manhattan Ballroom and Lobby Level Reception, highlighting the newest gear, products, technology and services from more than 50 companies and organizations.
