Infosys, Roland-Garros to bring new digital experiences for Tennis fans

From the all-new player app AI features to the enhanced Match Centre, we have leveraged powerful technologies and toolsets across the board to ensure fans, players, coaches have the best experience possible, wherever they are," Infosys Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao said.

Infosys and the French Tennis Federation on Monday announced new innovations that will hit the courts at this year's Roland-Garros. Last year, the Bengaluru-based company had signed a three-year partnership agreement with Roland-Garros to provide technology solution for tennis tournament The French Open, also called Roland-Garros.

The tournament started on September 21 and will go on till October 11. The 2019 tournament attracted more than 5,20,000 spectators and was broadcast in 222 countries worldwide. "Leveraging Infosys' technology platform, this year's tournament will deliver a digitally enhanced experience by facilitating virtual experiences and greater access for millions of fans, better training, and analysis among players and coaches, as well as storytelling support for journalists," Infosys said in a statement. Intense remote collaboration was required as a result of the ongoing pandemic, relying heavily on cloud-based services and an agile, innovative approach by both the organisations, it added. An artificial intelligence-powered analytics has been designed for fans in the Infosys Match Centre on RolandGarros.com and on the official app. Infosys will power the remote fan experience on the digital properties of the tournament bringing courtside to the fan's homes in immersive ways, the statement said. The redesigned Match Centre will provide tennis fans with innumerable ways of visualising a match - fans can dive into MatchBeats for point-by-point play, stroke-summary to understand the go-to-strokes of players, rally-analysis to look at how tactics change, and CourtVision to understand serve, return, and rally-based insights. Infosys is also powering an all-new mobile and tablet app experience for coaches and players at Roland-Garros. "Developed in collaboration with FFT's (Fédération Française de Tennis) players and coaches department, the app incorporates sophisticated and fast match analysis, rally replay, stroke analysis, and on-device video highlight editing and production capabilities — all powered by Infosys AI and enabled by a cloud powered architecture," it said. Besides, tools will be made available for media, including simultaneous match analysis, natural language generation (NLG) based match synopsis, and integration across publishing platforms for easy embedding into reports. The feature pulls from large and varied data sets and develops intelligent narratives for FFT journalists to integrate into their articles. It also powers the automatic creation of graphics including stats, trends, charts, and brings together high-resolution player images to create ready-to-publish content.

"2020 has introduced new challenges for how we consume sports and entertainment, and we are excited that our partnership with Roland-Garros once again reinvents the digital landscape for fans, players and the media alike. From the all-new player app AI features to the enhanced Match Centre, we have leveraged powerful technologies and toolsets across the board to ensure fans, players, coaches have the best experience possible, wherever they are," Infosys Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao said. Bernard Giudicelli, President of the French Tennis Federation, said it is an invaluable asset for Roland-Garros to be able to benefit from the expertise and innovative strength of a partner like Infosys. "Their expertise in data processing will enable us to offer all our fans the opportunity to slip into the shoes of an expert for improved match analysis. With Infosys, we are taking the spectator into a new experience, and a new dimension," he added.