Challenges, breakpoints, sets and wins - processing information at Wimbledon using IBM Watson

This year, the Wimbledon tennis tournament runs from July 3 to 16. And, as always, it attracts the attention of millions of sports fans from around the world. Tennis, despite its seeming simplicity, is actually complicated. This applies to both athletes and judges and spectators. Who won, how many points scored, who plays with whom - this information is constantly on everyone's lips.

To ensure that the organization of the match runs smoothly, and that all interested parties receive the necessary information, Wimbledon becomes more and more technological each year. Now it uses cloud technologies, analytics, mobile technologies, analysis of social and other trends. This year, the Watson cognitive system helps Wimbledon.


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To achieve the most effective results for working with tournament information, IBM uses InfoSphere Streams technology . It helps to process data in real time, displaying the results of games and other information on the masts exactly when it is needed most. Tennis fans will be able to work with a specialized application, which the developers have tried to make as interactive as possible.

In addition, the system can perform a lot of other tasks. For example, to identify players who will clearly dominate the match, that is, to help learn about the favorites of the tournament as much as possible. Tennis fans will be able to get both the main results and intermediate results, along with accompanying information (results of athletes by year, points, biographies, etc.). In addition, the number of misses, successful strikes, the number of victories, the success of the athlete, his rivals are indicated.



Here are the main technological innovations that await visitors to the tournament and spectators:

• Updating the interface and capabilities of the site wimbledon.com and mobile applications. In 2014, 63 million people visited the site. This year, attendance is expected to be much higher. The new site provides fans of the game with videos (replays, analysis of matches, etc.), infographics and other data. All this is available for both PCs and mobile devices, including iOS and Android.
  
  
• Statistics and trends. As mentioned above, the system will analyze many of the data in real time, Watson will be able to show current results, compare them with the past, make predictions for the future. This will be an analysis of textual and voice information through the processing of natural language. All data is planned to be displayed on various digital platforms.
  
  
• Social elements. Through the use of Social Media Analytics and IBM CxLabs technologies, tournament organizers will be able to identify the most attractive athletes to the public, find experts whose opinion is valued most, and understand what content fans of the game need.
  
  
• Cybersecurity During the tournament, IBM will detect and block thousands of suspicious events, allowing AELTC to get a complete picture of all security events and use the analysis to quickly detect and prevent potential attacks. In the first five months of 2015, IBM processed 94% more events in the infrastructure security system wimbledon.com compared to the same period in 2014. Every day, IBM handles more than 20 billion security events for 10,000 customers worldwide.

For each participant in the tournament IBM Watson can show detailed analytics, showing even the popularity of an athlete in different countries, the number of search queries and the mention on Twitter.

Recall that the IBM Corporation is the official partner of the organizers of the Wimbledon tournament since 1990. Organizer - All England Lawn Tennis Club. IBM collects, analyzes and transmits information around the world, including the media, fans, experts and athletes themselves. At the end of each match, each participant receives a detailed account of his game and the game of his rivals.