Counting scores for the lazy tennis player

The other day after a rather exhausting rally of tennis, my opponent and colleague from work, asked me the score. When I shrugged, because the brain was beginning to shut off, he pondered out loud

Why can there not be a system which can count and display the scores automatically? There is already a hawk eye system which is well established…

He had a point, and now my brain immediately perked up, because of that Canine AI training thingamajig that i am working on in my spare time. If i can detect a dog trying to hoist itself up a table — then how difficult should it be for a very similar system to detect and count tennis points.

With the motto search and you shall be rewarded i asked my best friend and confidante — Google Bai (see what i did there? Being PC is so easy)— if any such system was known.

In/Out Tennis

First port of call was In/Out Tennis. Their solution is to mount a funky alien looking hardware on the net post. The tri-camera system after some “easy” calibration reaches a state of supreme self awareness, in which, it tracks the ball and calls out, when the ball is really really out.

The calls are in the form of visual and audio cues. Green blob of light and one sharpish beep if the ball is in, yes, after every ball, and Red blob of light accompanied by two sharpish beeps when the ball is out. All of this, without the need for an active internet connection. In my professional world — this is the classic “Edge computing” system. Anyhoo, the system also provides a quick re-play and shots statistics kind of anaylsis. How fast did you hit the ball, where did you hit it, where should you have hit it and all that blah blah jazz.

But does the friendship saver also count scores? No! Why not? It is so obvious that they could, so why not? Is it really not so trivial as I thought?

SwingVision

In comparison to the “Edge” solution, these people solve the same problem in with only software. Almost. You bring the hardware. Or, hardwares as the case truly is. An iPhone (11 is bare minimum) and an Apple Watch. PingGuo a day keeps the doktor away, because you cannot pay for the doktor anymore.

So, you setup your Phone somewhere behind the baseline at a hight. How? and Where? You will need at least 10 minutes before the game to setup your phone, and since it is an iPhone, make sure it is fully charged. So now that’s done.

Line call. Check.

Review. Check.

Keep score. Check. Hol-up. Really? It is automatic? let’s find out..

Track who won each point. Swipe up or down to mark who won the point. Swipe left to mark a Fault and right to mark a Service Winner.

As you keep score, SwingVision will automatically track serve, return & break point stats and give you the ability to create ….

Yeah, right. So not automatic scoring!

But, hidden in the comments section of this review video it can been seen that, there is something in the works…

So, maybe there is hope :)

On the flip side and as expected, the — an overheated handy a.k.a. telefone portable a.k.a. phonu is the price to pay.