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Advanced Tennis Update

To Advanced Tennis Friends and Supporters,

It's time for our latest update on the progress of Advanced Tennis, starting with our incredibly successful video shoot and data recording at the 2001 Sybase Open. For 4 days we are able to film Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis, Greg Rusedski, Goran Ivanisevic, and American phenom Andy Roddick in high speed digital video.

The result is some of the best images of world class stroke production ever recorded. With the fast frame rate of our camera, you can see exactly what's happening in all the strokes--wrist, racket, arms, torso, legs. It's a major coup!

This data is also the basis for Principal Scientist's Nasif Iskander's revolutionary analysis of the "ball flight" in pro tennis. Nasif is analyzing the complex relationships between speed, spin, trajectory and the ball bounce on the court. What we are seeing is that all pro shots are not created equal.

Rusedski and Sampras both serve at 120mph but the spins they generate differ greatly.

To give one example; what are the differences in the serves of Pete Sampras and Greg Rusedski? Sampras is serving at 120mph with 2700rpm of spin, a kick serve with a heavy topspin component. Rusedski's serve at the same speed (120mph) is actually generating more spin--3500rpm--but his spin is almost purely slice! 

What does this all mean? The ball leaves the two players' rackets at the same speed but with very different types and amounts of spin. How much net clearance do they have? Which ball gets to the receiver first? What speed does each ball reach the receiver? At what height? How much different  speed and spin are conserved after the bounce? Can we see anything about what makes two serves more or less difficult from the receivers point of view? What can we say at the end of the day about the relative advantages of slice versus topspin?

We plan to make similar comparisons of the signature strokes of many other top players. What are the real differences in the forehands, for example of Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt, Pete Sampras, Gustavo Kuerton, and Marat Safin?? The one-handed versus the two-handed backhand?

Eventually our goal is to be able to analyze and compare the strokes of young players and players at all levels with the strokes of the top players and to do computer modeling of this so a player with a particular body type and grip style can be overlaid and compared with a pro model. This is already being done widely in golf.

Which bring us to our next important goal: filming in Los Angeles at the Mercedes Cup in late July. In another major development, the foundation has been approved to film at the Mercedes. This would allow us to complete data collection on virtually every top male pro player. We are currently in the process of putting together the further donations necessary to finance this. Our goal is to raise an additional $15,000 in the next 2 months.

If we succeed, we will have the ability to develop comprehensive new video training packages for young players. Most young players learn by watching and modeling top players. We are currently involved in putting together packages to allow coaches to do this in a systematic way. 

Some of the world's top coaches are involved, including Nick Bollettieri. I had the chance to spend several hours with Nick showing him footage and discussing its value. To put it succinctly, he went nuts over what we have. In the next month, he and some of his top coaches will start to use the foundation's footage at his world famous academy. His favorable response to our work has already helped in the fundraising, and he may get more involved in this critical aspect in the future. Other similar deals are now in the works with other coaches who have the ability to impact our great future young players. This is precisely what we want to happen with our work!

That's the report for now! I will keep you posted on what is happening with our efforts to finance our Mercedes filming.

Best Regards,
John Yandell
Advanced Tennis Research Project 

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