Tennis, cricket players now have access to close to real-time stroke play analysis via Athlete’s AI app
Want to improve your tennis or cricket? A new app offers AI-driven tools once available only to elite athletes, all on your smartphone — in near real-time. And it’s made in Adelaide.
SA Business
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA Business. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- De Minaur to play in Adelaide in January
- How to get the most out of your Advertiser digital subscription
An Adelaide start-up is bringing sports analytics data previously only available to the professionals to a wider market, with the hope that it will benefit players at all levels right around the globe.
Athlete’s AI has developed an application which delivers “close to real-time” analytics of tennis and cricket, with users able to record their game and upload it to the cloud for analysis.
Co-founder Dr David To played tennis professionally for four years and reached a ranking of 705 in the world.
He and fellow founders Dr Mark McDonnell and Dr Guy Gallasch have developed the program over the past two years.
Dr To, who is also a chemical engineer, said he and his founders have a strong background in machine learning and data science.
Dr To said the Athlete’s AI program did not rely on any sensors or hi-tech cameras, just a regular smartphone.
“Tennis has been one of the key sports we have focused on,’’ he said. “All you need to do is capture the video on your phone, and once you upload it to our server, it gets processed automatically providing the player with all the data.”
“The player can break it down into different players, strokes, direction, and various stats. All of that used to be done manually so we’ve automated the whole process.’’
Dr To said the company’s target market was a combination of elite and amateur sportspeople.
“With the amateur level, they can capture it on the phone and compare side-by-side different biomechanics, different technique.’’
At the professional level, Dr To is in discussions about the program being trialled at international tournaments.
“There, coaches can use a real-time version of our product where they can analyse their players while the game is being played,” Dr To said.
“They get all the stats and they can compare what percentage they are serving in a particular direction, what percentage of points they’ve won, where should they serve, where their opponent is serving, all of those stats will come out automatically.’’
Dr To said similar programs previously involved sending off the video, which was outsourced for manual labelling of the shots played, causing delays of up to 48 hours.
Athlete’s AI had worked around this delay by developing a machine-learning program to automate the labelling and its program can process one hour of video in 15 minutes.
“Three things have come together to make this possible,’’ Dr To said.
“The machine-learning aspect has boomed recently, sports analytics is getting bigger and bigger as a market, and the third component is the increasing power of the smartphone. The latest iPhones can process machine learning algorithms on device.’’
Athletes AI currently does all of its processing in the cloud but is testing processing shorter clips on the phone itself.
To use the program, the smartphone is simply placed directly behind the player in the case of tennis, on a tripod or attached to a fence or camera mount.
Dr To said their market analysis indicated amateurs were more interested in using the program to improve their technique, while professionals were more focused on tactics as their form was already well-developed.
MORE NEWS
AFL returns to Whyalla for the first time in 20 years
Qantas considers direct to KI route
The company is focused on the elite level initially to get some big name backers on board, but Dr To said the amateur market would likely turn out to be a larger market for them.
Adelaide Football Club has formed a strategic partnership with the company, and chief executive Andrew Fagan said the application had large potential.
“We believe Athlete’s AI is providing an innovative solution and developing a product with a big market opportunity applicable across a range of sports worldwide,’’ he said.
Cricket Australia’s high performance information manager, Brian McFadyen, said they were keen to explore the potential of Athlete’s AI.
“We have been involved with Athlete’s AI for 12 months now and have great faith in the technology, the intelligence and the productive relationship that continues to be cultivated,’’ he said.