New 'Smart' Tennis Racket Improves Swings With Data
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - In our data-driven world, sports is increasingly embracing data to try and gain an advantage.
And now, that data is making its way into actual sports equipment.
Want to get better at tennis? There's an app for that, and it's being used right here in Minnesota.
That's right, the tennis racket of the future has an "on" button.
It's called, of course, the SmartRacket, and it's made by Babolat.
"It'll go on to your iPhone or your Android device, instantly, right off the racket," said Rajan Keswani, Babolat's midwest territory representative. "In every single normal racket that we make, there's 20 grams of dead weight inside, and [the engineers] took those 20 grams, withdrew it, and put in a chip that has a gyroscope and an accelerometer built into it."
Keswani said it gauges the amount of spin on the ball, notices whether you're over- or under-hitting, tracks your forehands vs. backhands, and clocks your swing speed.
"You can't lie," he said. "You come off the court, and this measured everything exactly the way it happened."
John Pratt runs the Baseline Tennis Center at the University of Minnesota and was one of the first to get the rackets when they debuted, just 15 months ago.
"I was a bit skeptical about it," he said, "but it really is cool stuff."
It takes about two seconds to download data from the racket onto your phone.
Pratt said playing with the SmartRacket takes the guesswork out of getting better, replacing subjectivity with hard numbers.
"We're able to go ahead and let them play with the racket, pull the data off, work a little bit, come back out, see if things have changed or improved," Pratt said.
Rafael Nadal and Caroline Wozniacki are both using SmartRackets in competition right now. In fact, you can see their data from the Australian Open right now on Babolat's website.
Babolat's SmartRackets are about double the price of its regular tennis rackets.
