Sam Jacot: Hello and welcome to episode 19 of Tales from Tennis with me Sam Jaco and my co-host Jerome Coombe. This is an independent podcast that is not affiliated with the ATP in any way. This week's guest was Tom Corrie. Tom works for Tennis Viz in the data side of the sport. He's been in that role for about five years now and he was previously a coach. Hi, Tom, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Tom: Thank you for having me on. Great to be here.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, great to have you on. Can you talk a little bit about your journey to this point? Obviously now you're working in the data, but I you used to coach and be a little bit more in an active role in years gone by.

Tom: absolutely. Cheers, Sam. Yeah. So ⁓ ⁓ been working for this company called Tennis Viz for almost five years now. ⁓ sure we'll explain a little bit more what we do today. But previous to that, ⁓ life's always been in tennis. ⁓ played most of my life. I've got two brothers that played, parents played. ⁓ all went to college in the States ⁓ different times. ⁓ then I came back.

Sam Jacot: does you enjoy speaking to Tom?

Jerome Coombe: Yes, such an insightful episode again. Obviously sports and especially tennis now is so data driven,

Tom: and coached. So I was coaching at a centre in Hertfordshire called Gosling and we were at that time an international high performance centre deemed by the LTA. So we were one of the peak centres in the country. I worked there for just over 10 years and during that time coached Joe Salisbury for four years and coached my brother and a few other guys who were playing ATP level stuff. And then I worked for the LTA for a bit in a performance role there and then five years ago

Jerome Coombe: And it's great to see the work that Tom and many others have put into ⁓ the portal, which we'll into in the episode, ⁓ more accessible to and coaches ⁓ And it's ⁓ given the ⁓ players a platform to...

Tom: Someone I used to work with is the founder of Tennis Fizz essentially. He's called Richard. He reached out to me as the business was starting to grow. And yeah, I've been doing this five years and I love it.

Jerome Coombe: to really push on and all in all that just makes for a more competitive tour so we hope that we can continue to see the benefits in the game and yeah it's just a great look at the data in tennis at the moment and how it's changed in the past decade or so so hopefully we can continue like that.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, brilliant journey so far. And just for listeners who maybe don't know so much about tennis fizz, can you give an overview a little bit of what the platforms do and how it all works? I know it's quite a big question that.

Tom: Yeah, Well, yeah. So tennis is really is the brainchild of Richard and the foundations of it was creating more exciting tennis data. So tennis, felt, ⁓ had been starved of innovation in that space to a degree because

Sam Jacot: yeah loads of good stuff loads of stats so much for players and coaches and it's been great for the media as well to analyze the sport to a much greater depth you know we're not looking at just winners and unforced errors anymore there is as Tom gets into this so much

Tom: The main stats that were appearing on all the Grand Slams coverage or the ATP Tour or the WHA Tour were the same ones that were created 30 years ago, first serve percentage, first serve points won, break points won, et cetera. About six or seven level one data points as we call them and they were the main bulk of stats still. Whereas if you look at all other sports, they've moved on massively and if you watch golf coverage, mean Formula 1's, the Extreme, the American sports.

Sam Jacot: Part of the episode, Tom is sharing a screen, you'll just have to kind of try and follow and listen as he describes what he's showing us. But as we roll out some of our social media content, we'll try and clip up those parts of the episode so you can really see what he showing when he shares. But yeah, really, really good episode. How are you getting on Jerome apart from the tennis?

Tom: But if you watch even golf coverage or cricket or football with XG and everything, everything's moved on and tennis hadn't much. Now that is, I'll give ⁓ Hawkeye and the other companies their props because it has moved on. So it's not completely fair to say it hasn't because Hawkeye had been bringing us full frame graphics showing serve placement for the last 10 years or so. But we still felt that there was a gap in some of the things.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah, well, apart from the tennis, it's more tennis for me. Outside of the weekend, went back down to Wimbledon, had to play some Sorry League matches. I was looking at my record this year out of the 13 singles and doubles matches I've played this year, 12 of them have gone to third set tie breaks. So, yeah, I need to figure out how to win in straight sets, but getting the job done.

Tom: that were more digestible for fans, which is, so we first created our metrics, which we'll come onto, so things like shot quality, the score out of 10 for the server 10.4 on the back end, and then we created platforms to display the data because we knew we needed that, because it's one thing having the data, but it's another thing creating platforms so people could digest it themselves and use it themselves.

Jerome Coombe: But yeah, all good. Weather's all right. So yeah, enjoy myself. How about you, Sam?

Sam Jacot: Yeah, I had a tennis match last week as well. We drew overall as our team, but I delivered by winning three of the four sets with my partner. I did my part. But yeah, no good fun. And yeah, all really good here. Looking forward to Roland Garros and then the grass swing. And remember, if you are enjoying the podcast, to like, subscribe, follow us on our social media channels, give us a review. It just helps fans find the show.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah, and we obviously use it as well, the platform, and we love it. When Richard first reached out to you and you were having those conversations, did it seem quite simple and easy for you to kind of get on board with that idea? Was it something that you thought as well? yeah.

Tom: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've always been a tennis coach that wanted to gather the facts. I mainly because obviously young when I was coaching the good players, Joe and my brother and people, they were much better players than I ever was. So and I was a relatively young coach, know, mid 20s, early 30s. And therefore, if I was asking them to do things that were different, I was very keen on presenting the facts to them.

Sam Jacot: and we really appreciate the support. So 20 episodes in next week, lots more to come, you enjoy this episode with Tom now.

Tom: because it's not like as much as they trusted me. I wasn't a 50 year old coach that coached number ones in the world where you feel like you could just be like, just do this because it's better. Why? Because I said so. Like I wasn't that. So I really wanted to gather the facts to present to them why we need to make change in their games. So I've always been into stats and data, but I was just doing it in an incredibly manual way, which was you watch a match, you get your pen and paper out, you chart every single shot, you try and create insight, if you will, and go from there.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, and kind of moving on then to tennis spheres and having the platforms and sharing it more broadly. I know you work with coaches and players now and the media. What was the initial reception to it all at the start when you're going to teams with this extra data? Were a lot of coaches and players keen to take it in or were some maybe a little bit more resistant?

Tom: You do get a range, but I would say that people were, part of the reason we've got the success is I think we've come along at the right time. If we came along five, I mean, we've been, I've been with five years and ever since I started, we had already started forming contracts and relationships and all that stuff. So if it had been five years previous to that or 10 years previous to that, then I don't think the market of tennis would have been ready. But at the time we started, when we first started showing it to coaches, they were like, yeah, this is what we need. And there have been private companies existing before where people would spend a lot of money on gathering insight and data. So when we've done deals with the ATP or Wimbledon and now with Roland Garros and the players don't pay for it, it's another, I know sometimes people don't want to give the organisations the props that... Some people feel they deserve, but in this case, players aren't paying for anything. The organizations are paying for the platforms and delivering them to the players. So it's a completely free service that's remarkable really. So they were all like on the whole very receptive. You still get the occasional coach that is more, should we say old school and therefore tech in general, they're not into, let alone stats. They're just not into tech in general. So therefore they would be. less receptive, but most we know that now it's 18 or 19 of the top 20 players has someone in their team that are using it regularly. And the only other one I actually think if I get to them and do a demo, I think they would get it more into it as well. So.

Jerome Coombe: Well, you mentioned the top 20 or whatever, even going down the lower ranks, mean, I this is probably so useful for a lot of the challenger players out there and the lower level players who are looking to make that next step. And obviously then talking about the portal itself, how would, you give us a bit of an explanation of how players and coaches would use the tools that you're providing and how they have access to that? I know they have it in the boxes, court side as well.

Tom: Okay, so this is ATP Tennis IQ powered by the PIF. It's a great initiative between the ATP Tour, the PIF, and us, and Tennis Data Innovation. So it's sort of a few parties involved to bring it to the coaches. But what it does is I've logged in. As if I was Andre Rublev and you land on a home screen and it tells you their recent performances. It tells you how you've been doing over the course of a season, different things. One of the ways that the guys like it is straight away they can link to their most recent match. And if they hit this thing, they go not actually to the analytics, but to a video platform that is best in class. even if, and this is why we're getting a lot of cut through. One of the reasons why we're getting a lot of cut through is even if players and coaches aren't that into data, they're all into video. Because players want to watch themselves, they want to learn from it, they want to analyze opponents, sometimes through video, some love data, but some through video. And then what you can do with this platform is this is now the whole match cut up just point by point, and obviously as you can see there's no dead time, but then you have these range of filters that really takes it to the next level. So if I give a basic example, I can go Rublev's first serve on the juice. direction down the T and he plays a forehand on the next shot. That's quite a lot of filters, but I do all that. And then you just whack. There's four points where that, where Rubeliff's hit a T-serve on the juice side and hit a forehand on the next shot. And I've narrowed it down by using four things. But if I went back again and I just go, okay, I don't care about the T. I just want to see four serves on the juice side, right? So forehand on the next shot. Now I've got eight and there's any range.

Sam Jacot: here.

Tom: We can talk about this thing itself for an hour easily, but there's any range of filters. So I want to see my returns. want to see when players are hitting chip returns, topspin returns, where they're hitting the direction. Are they hitting it from up, neutral, back? I want to see points that end just in winners or unforced errors. I can isolate score, score sections of the match. So I can just see these three games or just the tie breaks, whatever. In the rally, I can see I can literally press how many times is there a backhand down the line slice and then it will bring those clips up or I can use some of our metrics, the conversion of steals after new winning points from attack and defence. So there's any number of those things. I know I'm talking a lot here boys, but the other thing then you can then go, which is even next level, say it was these three points that the coach or the analyst wanted to show to Andre. I select these three points, add selection to playlist. Create new playlist, ⁓ Rublev, great points. And then I save that and then I go to my playlist here and I have just a playlist of those points. And then even better for those guys, you can then go like this and then you can say share playlist, you copy this link, drop it in WhatsApp and you can send it to anybody else. That has a login for the platform. So you can't send it to anybody in the world because they won't be able to see it, but anyone.

Jerome Coombe: Hmm. Hmm.

Tom: And then you can even on any of these points go like this, add a comment, great footwork, whatever, on ball three of the rally, add that comment. And So it's really a very user friendly platform. I've obviously helped build it so I can do this stuff really fast. But we've met with loads of coaches. I met with a Hecker's coach in in Madrid after his run to Miami. He using every single match going on, writing comments after loads of points, he's sending it, showing it to Jerry. And he doesn't, it's just so much quicker anything they've ever had. to the floor, like the efficiency of what they're doing.

Jerome Coombe: And I guess obviously a lot of the stuff that you're mentioning there is so good for post-match and getting straight, like when players have come off court, going straight back into the detail with their coaches. Obviously it's being used as well during matches as well. And that's why I wanted to maybe ask about, because you know, you think about it in football, obviously they've often, you know, they've got some of the data, but a lot of the time, you know, it's down to the coaches to see what's happening on the court and same in tennis. with, in a tennis match, How useful can it be during the match itself? What kind of things would they be picking out on the portal?

Tom: Yeah, so during the match, the coaches love a few things because they like information about the serve and return primarily because obviously in rallies, players do make adjustments and you will, from my coaching experience, people will say things like, use your backhand line more, like to players in that if they're trying to make that. But in terms of data usage, it's really easy this kind of scream. where you've got, and for the people just listening, is a full core and it shows the spots of where the players have been serving. And it's updating in real time after every single serve. You can filter by first serve, second serve. You can filter by where they're winning most of their points. So you can see that certain players are being more, I mean, in this example I've put on the screen now, Rublev's 100 % of his first serves when he's serves out wide to Bacicic-Filli's backhand on the ad side. So. Obviously, he's won 90 % down the T as well, so he's had a very good day on the ad side. But in cases where there's more obvious, and they won't say numbers in my experience to the players, but it's use your T serve or cover T, for example, if the other person's doing it. So they use that. And then on our performance page, we don't have time to go into all the metrics in so much detail, but you have the shots played in attack, which in this one actually is quite low for these guys, which is quite surprising.

Jerome Coombe: Hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

Tom: considering how aggressive they are. But they use that as a signpost to is their playing playing more passive or more aggressive than they want to, because sometimes this metric switches. There you go. Quite a lot set by set. So Bachelet's just feeling way higher in the first set. And then he dropped, presumably. We'll see if he dropped. And it's still high in the second. So the third set, must have dropped a lot because his average. So yeah, there you go where you see big swings in like

Jerome Coombe: Hmm.

Tom: and the shots in attack metric is combining court positioning as well as a few other things. So it gives them a very simple overview of all their players playing passive or too aggressive and they can interact with that.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, the development over the past three, four years has been quite incredible. Just looking at all of this now, because I remember when it was launched, had you obviously the basic shot qualities that we've talked about earlier. There was an interesting stat that you mentioned before we started recording around Sinner that I was wondering if we wanted to get into now in twenty twenty three. I think you said his shot qualities were were high across across the board in terms of maybe return quality, forehand quality. ⁓ But it wasn't necessarily translating just yet to the best results. ⁓ How kind of did that work?

Tom: Yeah, yeah. So the shot quality metric has been around for several years now and has been used in media and with the players and coaches and for the people that are new to it, what it's doing is it's a single number out of 10 serve, return, forehand, backhand, and it's calculated by taking into account the speed, the spin, the depth and the width of every single shot and the impact it has on the opponent to create this number. Now, obviously, when I say that, We, I should have said at the start that we have become specialists in taking that excellent all in player tracking data, which is Hawkeye. There's other companies now. There's another very successful one called Bolt6 and there's more companies coming onto the market. So whichever provides that ball and player tracking, we use that data and we've created algorithms to turn it into fan friendly and better analytics. So this shop quality measure, the cool, you asked me a question of like on preparing for this, like what do you think is cool data? I mean, cool, phrase is cool and data is always an interesting one. It's not cool in the traditional sense, but one of the great writers from ATP tour

Sam Jacot: Yeah

Tom: This is back in March 29, 2023. He was asking, is there anything stick out? And I said, well, young Yannick Sinner back then in 2023 is doing some pretty special stuff. with the shot quality numbers and in this story that I've got on the screen and people can still find it on Google, I thought of it the other day, it's titled, Is Sina the Best Ball Striker on Tour? He has this extra gear and this was when, and I looked it up, 2023 about this time, he was ranked 11 on the 20th of March and then the beginning of April he was ranked nine. So he was by no means what he is now. And yet in the shop quality measures for the beginning of 2023, forehand quality, he was number two behind Novak. Backhand quality, he was number two behind Borna Coric, who obviously started the year very well back in 2023 on his backhand side. don't remember that, but that's what the data is saying. And in return quality, which I do remember how well Daniel was returning for many a year, he was number two behind Daniel.

Sam Jacot: Haha

Tom: So he was the only player in the top three of various shot quality measures at that point in time in March. And that is because even back then he was generating these amazing ball characteristics. And ball characteristics is the coachy term we all use for the speed, the spin, the depth and the width when you hit your shots. And he was beyond his level with that. So part of the reason I'm sure why Cahill. and those guys joined the team as they could see from a young age that he is doing stuff that other people cannot do. And the data was showing it there ahead of him actually doing what he's then gone on, which we all know about in the last couple of years. So yeah, that's a good example of the data can show us stuff. Like we all watched Shinnah back then and he was obviously good.

Jerome Coombe: Hmm.

Tom: had come to me and said, who's the best ball striker on tour? If I didn't have the data, I wouldn't definitely go Yannick Sinner because there was other people that were good in 2023. But because I had the data, I was like, Yannick Sinner. And then he writes this story and now it looks very clever because Sinner's gone on to do what he's done.

Jerome Coombe: Hmm. Hmm.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, that was written before his first Masters title, think, Sinner, because he won his first Masters in Toronto that year, a few months later. And as we record, this will be released after Rome, but he could complete the Golden Masters this week, which shows, you know, quite phenomenal, really, ⁓ three years. But yeah, there's loads of great stuff. I was just going to ask a little bit about, you've kind of talked about Head to Heads and Sinner and Alcaraz. can you talk a little bit about... how the platform maybe shows match-ups and how that works.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah and that's one thing that I really enjoy about portal is that you can look specifically at how players match up when they play a certain player compared to the rest of the tour which I think is really, really interesting.

Tom: Yeah, yeah, I think so too as well. And particularly for the media space. mean, in the coach, this is one of the differences between the platforms. We know that on the media version of the platform, which is for the ATP called Courtside Advantage, the head-to-head tool and the leaderboard tools get used a lot because it's great for writing stories to have that context for how people match up and how they stack up in leaderboards. Whereas for the players and coaches, they are using that less because they know their heads to heads versus people. They know what strengths other people have on how they're trying to manipulate. But they do use it for like finite detail of how to head matchups. But the cool thing for the fans is, and I've done this story on many sort of podcasts and we've written some cool pieces about it with the BBC and different people, is that if you go on the platform and you, whenever you go on our platforms on the head to head, the standard is showing the 52 week. average of the players. So that is when they play everybody, what is their average scores. And for those listening, of our performance rating, which is an overall metric for how well people play, the shots in attack, the conversion score for how well people win points when they're in attack, the steal score for how well people turn points around, and then the four shot qualities, ⁓ still leads the 52 week average in seven six of the metrics, the forehands there even, Sin is actually slightly ahead on the average, I know it's like two decimal places, and Alcaraz leads only in the steal score for the 52-week average. However, when you flip to the head-to-head, so this is the scores based on playing each other, most of the metrics lean in Carlos's favor, because until recently, Yannick's won the last... couple you guys are on this stuff he obviously beat him in Turin

Sam Jacot: Yeah, he's beaten him in Turin and he beats him in Monte Carlo. So I think he's won the last two because Alcraz won the US Open.

Tom: Yeah, I've got that. Use the platform. Just scroll down, Tom, because it's all written here. So yeah, Cine one Monte Carlo Cine one Turin. Obviously Alcara's on the US Open Cine Alcara's Cincinnati. Don't know if we count in that and then Wimbledon before Yannick's got him. And then before that, obviously the epic at Roland Garros. But Alcara still has the winning head to head versus them and all those numbers shift which

Jerome Coombe: Hmm.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, I remember them.

Tom: The reason I like this is it directs our attention when you watch to things that you wouldn't necessarily notice. So one of the things is conversion score. So points one when you're in attack, thinner leads the four in this sort of unsurprisingly now, cause he hasn't lost, but even for the last year he's led the tour in this because he's the most ruthless when he gets chances in points. People used to talk about his volleys, but if you watch carefully, he doesn't mess many of them up.

Sam Jacot: Mm.

Tom: He gets short forehands, he thumps it into the corner, he puts volleys away. He's very clinical when he has attacking chances. Carlos also, I've heard this to the rest of the tour, is obviously amazing around the net and all that stuff. But Sinha leads slightly in that. But when they play each other, Sinha's conversion score, if you're not watching, 74%, the tour leading down to 63 % when he plays Carlos. That is a huge drop. And if that was in the leaderboard, that would put him way down in terms of points one in attack.

Sam Jacot: Hmm.

Tom: And part of that is because Carlos is such an amazing defender. So he does that to everybody, but to be sinner and be that good as hit and then drop off that much when you play Carlos is a huge drop off. So the reason I like that is that when I watch them, I'm now constantly looking for that. If I didn't have the data, even with my like trained tennis eye, I wouldn't have necessarily noticed that and look for it. So just makes tennis more interesting.

Jerome Coombe: Mm. And that kind of leads me on to my next question then is that do you think the coaches and the respective teams are looking into that specific data and using this specific head, I know you said maybe they don't use it as much but maybe it is Darren and Simone and the team maybe looking into that and looking at how that can be improved going into the next meeting for example.

Tom: Yes, we know they use the platform, both of these teams. I can't speak for, haven't, even if I had, wouldn't be comfortable saying it. I haven't spoken to them in details about the matchups. So I can't say for sure, like he's aware the conversion score drops. Actually, I can say that he's aware of that because we didn't tell them at Wimbledon. But I can't say that they've been actioning that as a thing, but.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, yeah.

Tom: They'll know it. 100 % they know that because when you Carlos, one of the biggest challenges for everybody is where if you don't come to the net on something excellent, if you don't get him, like his court coverage is arguably the best ever, that he's going to win unbelievable points in defence. So they know that and then it's just, and then if you go into the matches, and this won't surprise you, but if you go into the matches where Sinner wins versus Carlos, he maintains a good conversion score.

Sam Jacot: Yeah.

Tom: So in the win, it was very high. In the matches that he has beaten, he maintains it. The matches that he's lost to him is really, really low, which is why the average is still quite low. So yeah.

Sam Jacot: Yes, it's really useful obviously for coaches and players and Jerome and I, we're lucky to use it as well with our day-to-day work thanks to you guys sharing details with us in the past. But how have analysts and people in the media taken to it? I'm sure they've been really, as we have, really delighted to have access to it. I know the platform is slightly different to the ⁓ player platform, but yeah, what's the consensus been like from the media?

Tom: Yeah, very, very interested. ⁓ We, we threw our partnership with TDI, which for the fans at home, they are, as you guys know, because they're in the same office as ATP. They are called Tennis Data Innovations and they are ⁓ responsible for managing the ATP's and ATP media's data. And through them that we bring that platform to commentators around the world. to also but to private content creators and people that want to create it so some of the people that you'll be very aware of do similar things to you with podcasts and whatnot have ⁓ Licensed to subscription and then they absolutely love it because you you guys that are into analyzing tennis matches To have this now where I've shown a couple of things with the shot quality scores, but it has everything like shot placements The tactics they're using have to using their backhand line versus cross-court the serve location stuff, the average speed, spin rates compared to the tour average, compared to their own average, everything you're interested in, they can find and use for their own analysis.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, I find it so useful before a big match if I'm covering a final, ⁓ a major final or semi-final. If you can pick the trends out before the match, that can help, obviously, with the storylines. But Jerome, I think you were going to jump in.

Jerome Coombe: Well, yeah, I know it's just again, it's just so interesting that obviously tennis is a sport that is often associated with, you know, these these analysts and people that are so bugged down by the numbers. then, yeah, as you said earlier, tennis has been a bit behind in in bringing things like this to life. So, yeah, it's great that we've finally got it.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, I'm going to move it on slightly to you mentioned there at Wimbledon, you knew that Yannick's team were using the platform. What's your role when you go on site then? Because I've seen you, I don't know, maybe Madrid or Rome in the past, various places I've kind of seen you in hotel lobbies or on the way in cars to site. So what's your role when you are at tournaments?

Tom: So we do a couple of different things when we're at tournaments. For the ATP, when I go primarily, it is for working with the coaches to make sure that they can get the most out of it. So the PIF coming on board has been great because they're very keen on pushing it to as many coaches, making sure that many coaches and players know how to use it and then also how to get the most out of it. So I'm in the What that actually means is I'm in the players lounge, I'm hanging around, I'm working with the tour managers who are great to so-and-so's got a question about the platform, can you meet them and show them how to use it more and that's what I'm doing. So it ranges from some people are like, oh, there are still some coaches, not many, that are like, oh, I hadn't seen the communications, how do I log in? And then it's literally log in, here's the basic stuff. And then, I said, I did an hour with Lehekkers coach in Madrid very recently where we're going through point by point different themes and how to maximise using the video player and all that stuff and everything in between.

Jerome Coombe: And when you're not on site, will you have them people kind of coming to you for questions, texting, emailing?

Tom: Yeah, we help people out remotely with sending them little clips of how to use it, screen recordings, yeah, exactly, different things.

Sam Jacot: How much you enjoy, I guess, being right in the heart of it. I know because you've coached before and this is a different role, but you're making, you know, real difference to not just now the players that you're coaching, but across the whole tour. Does that, from a personal point of view, that must be quite rewarding,

Tom: I don't fool myself thinking that I'm having any influence personally, being honest, over any of ⁓ the tennis. ⁓ I don't that. What do think is that I really like, ⁓ I really like, as you tell from the way I speak, what we've built ⁓ as a company. And I to do this stuff, the podcast, and I go speak to the players and stuff. ⁓ There is a whole team of 20 odd people behind the scenes that range from tennis experts to data scientists, front end software engineers, back end software engineers that bring everything to life. And all of them I enjoy working with and what we're creating, I genuinely feel is best in class, not just in tennis. When you look at the platforms and other sports, we're now like industry leading. So I really like that. then, yeah, it is fulfilling like coaches saying, thanks, this is great and all that stuff. But it's more, I'm more passionate, not about the individuals anymore or the players. I'm just about like, yeah. And it sounds cliche. It's like a lofty statement, but I do believe that this stuff is having a very small, but influence on the general level of the sport. Because if people are preparing smarter, and feeling calmer going into matches, they play better. And if everyone plays a bit better, then the level goes up. Now, obviously there's endless things that have improved from string quality, which you guys will have spoken about, racket technology, S and C, huge in the last 20 years, which means these guys are specimens now and they weren't as much of specimens 30 years ago. So it's only a small thing in all that evolution, but I do think it's making a small difference, which is obviously great for the sport.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah, and then a more competitive tour. Looking ahead, then obviously, as you said, it's quite tour leading now, but do you think maybe in five to 10 years, do you think that's going to be playing a bigger role, this data and the analytics?

Tom: I think it will. ⁓ because as ever, we've got one of the things we're going to do ⁓ in the next couple of years is make, to make the platforms even easier to use for the coaches. ⁓ we're very close to doing something that's really neat, which is I showed you the video player where you can use a range of filters, but what we're also going to do is bring the video into links all over the site. So if you were looking at the serve placement graphic I showed you earlier, you just press a link and you just see those serves. If you're looking at return contact points from deep, just press a link and see all the points where they've returned from deep. So the more incremental small UI is the phrase in UX, like user experience, things you improve for them, the more even the sort of sceptic coach would just be like, well, I have to use it now. Because if everybody's using it and they're getting an advantage, then it drags everybody in. yeah, it's now not a case of revolution in terms of like, it's now just continuous evolution of just making things better, more user friendly, more interesting data, listening to the feedback of people like yourselves and them, the coaches, and just keep improving it so that everyone uses it more basically.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, and in sport, obviously, anyone wants the finest of margins to benefit them. The margins are so tight that... locker rooms using it and you're not unless you're Yannick Sinner not using it, which he obviously is and winning all the matches you're to want to get on the platform because you there are such tight margins. Last one on the platform obviously you started working with tennis viz in 2021 I think it was kind of founded by Richard in 2019 I believe. Now you've got obviously a bigger backlog of data that probably helps players as well and coaches for the longer term because they have more matches they can look back on over several years, if that makes sense. They can see, oh, three years ago, you know, maybe my conversion score was 10 % lower and whatever tweaks we've made in this time have clearly made a big difference. Whereas obviously when the platform first comes about, you have less data. So it's harder to spot longer term trends because we've talked a lot about short term trends here looking back at recent matches. But I guess coaches and players probably use it. maybe at times to look back over a two, three year period now and see where they've improved as well.

Tom: absolutely. ⁓ on the, on the platform, we have a whole area which we haven't ⁓ on this call. We can do it maybe another time, but is that called the scout area. And in the scout area, it's focuses on one player and the user is able to filter by anything they like in terms of data range, like you're saying. So they can just do just clay this year, or they can manipulate it to just ⁓ recent tournament ⁓ look back at. So one of the ones I always used to show, I hope he's obviously fit soon, was Jack in Indian Wells when he won it. And if you isolate that tournament, his steel score was 38 % for that tournament. And he averaged lower thirties. Alcaraz's average, I did that in front of me, is Tor leading in that, at 39%. So in that tournament, Draper was defending comparative to Carlos because of the conditions, whatever else he was. really fit at that point. So it's things like that where you then, and Arthur Fee on the run recently, obviously, shame he's injured as well, hopefully back for Paris, all of his scores have gone on the rise recently because, and then you can find out why. So the scores go up and then you look, well, Arthur's consistency of his revolutions and his... always been up there. We did post about it two years ago and even the top right hand corner ⁓ he was anybody. The speed and spin were always there but the consistency was low and the accuracy of his forehand was low. Then he puts that, essentially makes more forehands and then he starts winning tournaments. So you can isolate all those things yourself and to your point Sam, compare three years ago but what they will do be doing often is comparing two months ago. and go like, we had a really good run here, what changed? We didn't have such a good run. I think you're not moving as well and therefore not defending as well. And they can find that out easily.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, that's brilliant. really is. ⁓ Just to finish, we're just going to ask you a couple of more lighthearted ⁓ questions or ⁓ away from tennis physics exactly. But what's your favourite event on tour that you've worked at or visited in either of your roles as a coach or what you do now?

Tom: Yeah, good question. I'm gonna... Sloppy shoulders it and do several. I'm gonna... That's not the right phrase, is it? But I'm gonna sit on the fence, I'm gonna bottle it. Sloppy shoulders is I do at work in all my... I'm gonna bottle it and I'm gonna give you a few. I went to... Well, I went to the World Tour finals...

Jerome Coombe: You You

Tom: Several times when it was in London, one as a fan with Joe as well, Salisbury, which was awesome. And I went to Turin for the ATP to work with the coaches a couple of years ago. And that was great. They put ATP tennis IQ, I don't know I'm doing, what you asked me not to do, but they put it in the locker room on a giant iPad for all the players. And it was quite new then. So it was really good to interact with them there. Turin was brilliant. Roland Gauss and Wimbledon are amazing. We do separate contracts with them. We do TV graphics stuff with them. So it's quite intense weeks. But those tournaments, I've been going to Wimbledon my whole life. It's obviously amazing. And then on the ATP tour, Rome Master Series is going on now. And I went there a couple of years ago and that's really cool because Rome's an amazing city, just in general. then tough.

Sam Jacot: Yeah, this site is amazing as well.

Jerome Coombe: Yeah, I'm sad to not be there this year. Last year was my first time going and yeah, it was glorious. I Pierre-Trangely might be one of the most scenic courts in the world. Yeah, maybe one about yourself. Has there been a career highlight from you? know obviously you've coached before with Joe and other players and obviously played college tennis as well yourself. Is there something now working in the sport?

Tom: Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Jerome Coombe: something that's been a highlight of yours.

Tom: ⁓ yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of things in this job that I didn't see happening. Like, you like, it sounds like cliche stuff again, but I've always just been involved in love tennis. I never then thought I would be in the locker room with Caspar Rue during Turin speaking to his dad about how to get the most out of data. Like that wasn't on my bingo card as people say a few years ago. I didn't see that coming. So that's obviously pretty cool. Likewise, when we do our production work for TV, we're in the ears of some of the most respected and best commentators in the world with our headsets on during Wimbledon Road on Garros. Like having quick conversations with them about what the data means and shall we show this graphic for the fans? I didn't think that was gonna happen. So those things are really cool. When I was coaching Joe, was the first time in 2018, he was playing Wimbledon on a wild card doubles with Freddie Nielsen and they made the semis. And that was really cool because I coached my brother for years through futures and challenges and a couple of ATP events. So I got some cool experiences, but the semifinals of Wimbledon, yeah, it's doubles. Obviously people want to say singles, but... You're still there on the semis was on court one. You're in the box. Like that's wicked. The pressures of it all of like, was then, now he's won some slams and he's like for established doubles player. But at that point, yeah, at that point, like his family had been great, but for his own tennis, had zero money, zero like.

Jerome Coombe: Yes. Just a few.

Tom: like he'd been traveling, we'd given me a great deal at Gosling and then he's in the semi finals of Wimbledon and he's getting the paycheck and we're almost like giggling like a bit like, and then he's gone on and whatever, but that's just really cool because he's a good guy and we've remained friends. So it was one of those things where it's like, you're pleased for the people. When you're coaching, that is why people do it. It's cause you're influencing people and you're helping them achieve things. And that's obviously really wicked, which is probably the same reason why Darren's still working with Yannick because he likes him. He's not doing it for, for like money or, probably money, but he's, he's not doing it for like his own career anymore. Like Darren Cahill is like, he's coached all these people. He's one of the best ever end of conversation, but he liked, he probably really likes Yannick and Yannick doing great things.

Sam Jacot: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tom: makes him feel really good and that's why he's doing it. So anyway, I'm waffling there. There's a few highlights for you.

Sam Jacot: That's brilliant. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all this. It was really, really great to hear more. I'm sure people listening who don't know as much will be ⁓ really excited to hear. So thanks so much, Tom.

Jerome Coombe: No, Yeah.

Tom: Cheers guys.

Jerome Coombe: No thank you Tom, really appreciate it.