KENNETH A JENSEN
Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open
ANALYZING TENNIS DATA FOR THE FOUR MAJOR TOURNAMENTS
Between 2011 and 2017, I was working closely with the IBM group that is responsible for IBM's sponsorship of the four major tennis tournaments. These tournaments are the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open.
I pioneered the development of the “Keys to the Match” for the tournaments and I am solely responsible for the analytical work for the solution from the initial conceptualization through the data management to the development required to create the fully-automated system that has now been in use during each of the tournaments since July 2011.
The solution is currently used IBM as part of the SlamTracker application alongside the real‑time match scores on each of the tournament websites and it was used by by ESPN in their broadcasts between 2012 and 2017.
I was presented with IBM's Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2012 for my work on the project along with the team that was responsible for the technical infrastructure of the solution.
HOW IT WORKS
The solution utilizes the massive amounts of data that for many years have been collected in for each point by courtside statisticians and by equipment such as radar guns that record the speed of serves and other shots. The data is acquired in real-time and immediately made available to the fans through the SlamTracker application on the tournament websites.
The "Keys to the Match" (or just "Keys" for short) is an attempt to identify the most relevant of these many statistics for each player in a match and to find value that the player should target for those statistics to increase their chances of winning a set. The idea is to identify something that the player does not always do or is not always important, but which will be of significance against this particular opponent. The objective was to avoid the obvious objectives related to winning a set, such as "win more points" or "break the opponent's serve".
I started out by developing a profile for each player that was based on the available player statistics and these profiles are then used to train a clustering model that divides the players by their playing style and another algorithm derives the players' ability based in their seedings and prior results. Each player is reassigned to the most appropriate playing style and ability-level before each new match as more and more recent information becomes available.
For each upcoming match, the solution uses data from past sets from matches between the two players and if needed also brings in data from sets between comparable players based on the playing style and results. I first use a feature screening algorithm to rank the features based on the correlation with the outcome of a set and then continue to train a propensity model using each of the ranked features one at a time. The propensity model is then interpreted and the relevant cut-points are used as the "Keys to the Match".
In total, this approach generates around 5,500 distinct predictive models during each tournament and requires no human supervision or intervention.
While I was at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) in 2012 to support both the IBM online presence and the ESPN broadcasting team, I was Interviewed by British sports commentator Rob Walker for Live@Wimbledon. In the interview, I explain the fundamentals of the "Keys to the Match" in less than 5 minutes.
Wimbledon 2012: A look at how the IBM Slamtracker works
WORKING WITH ESPN
During the Roland-Garros tournament in 2012, I joined the ESPN production and graphics units in Bristol, CT, to find the best way to present the "Keys to the Match" to the TV viewers in the live broadcasts. It was a challenge to find a way to display such complex information on the screen without taking up too much real estate and for the commentators to present these results in the time available between two points.
At the following tournament at Wimbledon, we were ready for the tennis commentators to start using what had now been rebranded as the "IBM Insights" during the live broadcasts from the tournament.
I spent the duration of the 2012 Wimbledon tournament and the US Open the same year with the ESPN tennis commentators. I educated them on how the statistical models worked and how each of the metrics was defined, so that they could speak confidently and accurately about each of them. They gave some valuable feedback that was incorporated into the solution as quickly as I could and they taught me more about tennis than I had ever hoped to learn. I primarily worked with Chris Fowler, Patrick McEnroe, Brad Gilbert, and Mike Tirico (now with NBC Sports), but also with Darren Cahill, Mary Joe Fernandez, and John McEnroe.
The first of the videos below shows the introduction of the "IBM Insights" as narrated by Tom Rinaldi from the fourth round match between Roger Federer (SUI) and Xavier Malisse (BEL) and includes a post-match evaluation of the "IBM Insights" that were presented earlier in the match.
ESPN and the IBM Insights
ESPN and the IBM Insights
2012 Wimbledon - IBM Insights - Federer v. Malisse
2012 Wimbledon - IBM Insights - Federer v. Malisse - Post-match
2012 Wimbledon - IBM Insights - Azarenka v. Ivanovic
2012 US Open - IBM Insights - Murray v. Raonic
DERIVATIVE SOLUTIONS
Based on the solution developed for tennis, a similar solution called Key Targets is part of the Match Centre, which was developed for England Rugby and is used in the Rugby 6 Nations tournaments. I was not directly involved in the development of this (and I know nothing about rugby), but I was consulted on the principles of the analytics and the architecture of the overall solution.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Below is a small sample of articles that features the "Keys to the Match" solution. Most of the articles are fairly short and none of them go very deep on a technical nor an analytical level, but they do show how IBM was able to use the solution as part of their marketing strategy to promote their advanced analytics solutions.
The New York Times (August 21, 2013)
As Tennis Stats Proliferate, Software Tries to Make Sense of It All
When fans think of statistics, baseball, football and basketball often come to mind first. But motion-capture cameras and other automated technologies are ubiquitous enough that a sport like tennis is being overrun with data ...
ESPN Playbook (July 2, 2012)
Wimbledon Analyzed Like Never Before
Not a tennis expert? That’s OK. With the technology being utilized at Wimbledon, anyone can feel like a tennis expert -- even someone who still calls Anna Kournikova his favorite tennis player. Wimbledon has partnered with IBM to bring predictive and analytic technologies ...
The Guardian (June 10, 2012)
The power of analytics: enhancing the Wimbledon experience
Any business keen to boost its customer service levels and make its marketing more
effective should keep a close eye on this month's Wimbledon tennis championships. IBM,
the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club's (AELTC) information technology
partner ...
Technology Spectator (January 20, 2012)
IBM's data Grand Slam
There’s a lot to be said for the adage: “The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know”.
At least that’s the feeling I got when IBM gave journalists the lowdown on its SlamTracker tool at the Australian
Open tennis grand slam ...
Bloor Research (September 12, 2011)
IBM PointStream at the US Open tennis tournament, Big Data in the real world
Sports fans like to analyse their sport, to understand a range of key pointers to form, and how the game is unfolding, and IBM are now supporting the tennis fan with in-depth analysis that allows the fan to see a body of evidence that will rival the expertise of even the most seasoned professional ex-player-turned-pundit. This is not about some fancy graphics, with smoke and mirrors behind it, but is about really deepening the relationship between the fan and the event ...
Portfolio.com (September 2, 2011)
IBM Serves Up New Technology
For 20 years, IBM and the United States Tennis Association have been partners in helping tennis fans
keep better tabs on what’s going on at the USTA’s prime event—the US Open. For the 2011 tournament,
taking place now in New York, IBM is rolling out an enhanced version of PointStream ...
The Telegraph (June 23, 2011)
Wimbledon 2011: the top five tennis technologies
No longer content with simply showing how many sets and games have been won by each player, the new scoreboard at Wimbledon.com will tell readers where the two players are winning and losing the match. By examining the pattern of play, the technology establishes three "keys to the match" ...
"Kenneth and I worked together on a project called "Keys to the Match" which was a very innovative and exciting tennis analytics project. This project used existing tennis statistics to create entirely new tennis statistics using a complex mix of technologies and innovative approaches.
Kenneth was the perfect fit for this project. Not only was he an expert data scientist with remarkable analytics skills, he was also an expert in tennis statistics and an expert in several different technologies like SPSS and DB2. Kenneth's wide skillset allowed him to integrate with the team quickly and build a very impressive solution which more than accomplished the project goals. He was the perfect guy for the project.
Additionally, Kenneth was able to describe the solution and defend the science behind the solution. He did this with many different types of people ranging from tennis experts to data scientists that were not familiar with tennis and to the average person. The work was relatable to people who work in many different types of industries and was highly relevant for our project stakeholders.
Anyone who might search for "Kenneth Jensen Keys to the Match" will find references to this work. It generated a lot of interest at the time and also led to an internal company Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.
Kenneth is highly capable and was great to work with. I hope to have the opportunity to work with him again."