A New Era in Tennis Training!
By Robert Allen Gibson
When I first started looking at Boomer, I was looking for a training partner. I went up to Virginia and tested the machine myself. It was amazing. It brought up many more questions. Is it worth $14,500.00? If I were to win two tournaments, I could pay for the machine. As a tennis instructor/coach, it would take 363 lessons. But with that thought, then came many more questions.
1. Do you think Boomer would benefit you and your students?
2. What is the list of the features?
3. What is the list of the benefits?
4. What would you improve?
5. What is the down side?
6. What can’t it do?
7. How would you use it?
I believed that Boomer could benefit my students and me. It could play me at any level from beginning level to professional. I would always have a partner to play with according to my schedule. My students even when they get better than me could have a challenging opponent. It could extend my career in teaching tennis. The machine is programmable. It gives the players immediate feedback so that they don’t have to look up to see if their shot is in or out. It could react to my shots. It could play my music. It would tell me the NTRP Rating and average speed of my shots.
So what is missing? How could it be improved? What do you think about the Analytics? Do you think the Analytics would benefit you or your students? I thought to myself how does this machine know what to do based on my shots? I wanted to see what made it tic. This machine had a, computer, Speaker system, camera, printer port a spare keyboard port, Microphone port, a USB drive and a spare Monitor port. I don’t use any of those things, what are the potentials of this ball machine?
I bought this machine for 3 reasons; it trains the users to read the ball and not the player; it was $11,500.00 less than Spot shot (a program that tracks the location of the ball during play and calls the lines); it could play full matches with pro’s so that after I get too old I could still work with my Pro’s. Therefore, I started testing its strength and weaknesses. For 2 years, I worked with David Jordon to make this machine a tool that can be a tool for instructors to strengthen the US tennis players. It was great that it told you what is going on, but putting it in print was what really needed to be done to be a great tool. Being able to share a player’s statistics that would be something. If they could review and take, back to their Coach or Pro their performance, that would make a difference in the game of tennis.
I had developed a rating system years ago, that allowed me to rank my players based on the workouts we were doing. Every drill and every point played had a value placed on it. The students really excelled knowing where they stood compared to the others. This system works great for 14 and older but the younger ages tended to get distracted and would guess how many points they had or they couldn’t add up all the points accurately. So how could boomer help? Well this machine has no bias, the shots are in the area or not. The rating system is based on depth, width, speed and to some extent the sequence of shots. Therefore, I wanted a system that would jog the memory/pictures of the players so that they could replay them in their matches. Therefore, we started writing out everything boomer knew, to the USB Drive. This allowed Ruben & me to create a conversion tool to translate boomers information into a database. The raw data was not useful to most players or coaches, so I took the database and started crunching the numbers into percentages about power, speed, depth, width, shot sequence, and types of strokes. These tools allow players to better understand their own game, their thinking processes, allow them to grow faster and go higher in the game of tennis, and excel in life’s routines of managing errors, fixing mistakes, learning about one’s abilities but more importantly learning how to do the impossible and overcome challenges. Here are just 3 reports a player can get out of Boomer playing matches or drilling.
This report is all about Power and speed. The Lower the Boomer level it means the weaker and shorter boomer was hitting the ball. The average speeds show how fast the player responded to the strokes boomer hit. Max speed indicates the potential of the student.
|
Boomer Level |
Percentage in |
Total Shots |
Average Speed |
Your Fastest Speed Response |
Average Depth in feet |
Average Width from center |
|
|
2.0 |
67% |
3 |
18 MPH |
18 MPH |
6 |
9 |
|
|
2.5 |
100% |
3 |
19 MPH |
22 MPH |
5 |
9 |
|
|
3.0 |
33% |
3 |
77 MPH |
77 MPH |
25 |
3 |
|
|
3.5 |
67% |
3 |
49 MPH |
73 MPH |
20 |
8 |
|
|
4.0 |
100% |
3 |
63 MPH |
78 MPH |
14 |
6 |
|
|
4.5 |
67% |
3 |
59 MPH |
69 MPH |
19 |
11 |
|
|
5.0 |
100% |
3 |
52 MPH |
66 MPH |
19 |
11 |
|
|
5.5 |
45% |
20 |
48 MPH |
72 MPH |
25 |
6 |
|
|
6.0 |
67% |
3 |
43 MPH |
65 MPH |
20 |
5 |
|
|
6.5 |
58% |
218 |
60 MPH |
100 MPH |
23 |
6 |
|
|
7.0 |
50% |
2 |
61 MPH |
61 MPH |
30 |
10 |
|
|
264 |
| This report indicates how well the player reads the ball coming at them and what weakness they have returning a specific style of shot. | |||||||
|
Percentage in |
Total Shots |
Boomer’s Stroke to you |
To Fore Hand |
To CTR |
To Back Hand |
||
|
75% |
12 |
Drop Shot |
3 |
9 |
0 |
||
|
50% |
20 |
Flat Drive |
9 |
11 |
0 |
||
|
59% |
22 |
Heavy Topspin |
6 |
16 |
0 |
||
|
14% |
7 |
Lob |
2 |
5 |
0 |
||
|
75% |
48 |
Pass |
17 |
23 |
8 |
||
|
71% |
34 |
Serve |
19 |
15 |
0 |
||
|
50% |
8 |
Slice |
3 |
5 |
0 |
||
|
45% |
55 |
Topspin |
24 |
31 |
0 |
||
|
206 |
|||||||
This reports indicates the players control of their shots, are they hitting the ball back to the player or are they moving them on the court. This indicates the player is only having to play half a court and the ball is in their sweep spot at the baseline.
| Based on a level 3.0 -3.5 player or placement in 3rds of the court | |||||||
|
93 |
60.00% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents backhand | |||||
|
52 |
33.55% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents Center Court | |||||
|
8 |
5.16% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents Forehand | |||||
|
51 |
32.90% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents Deep Court | |||||
|
88 |
56.77% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents Mid Court | |||||
|
16 |
10.32% |
of your shots were hit to your opponents Fore Court | |||||
List the Features and Benefits of Boomer + Analytics + Pro
A ball machine is better than a wall.
- It never gets tired.
- It simulates a stroke like many of the strokes your opponent hits.
- You learn to read the stroke not the player.
- You can count your 1 Million strokes a year easier.
- You can groove any stroke (High, Low, Topspin, Slice, etc.); you want to work on easier.
- You have less down time picking up balls that go over the Fence.
- Your targets and zones are on the court of play not a blank canvas.
Boomer as the Ball machine.
- All of the above plus the following.
- It simulates point play (hit a ball after it sees your shot land in the court).
- It has points programed in that are used by the pro’s to win points.
- It plays full matches.
- It calls the lines like Hawk Eye or Spot Shot.
- It can play an adult full size court or the 10 and Under Mini court.
- It could play with Orange, Green Dot , or regular yellow tennis balls.
- It keeps score.
- It can be challenging or an easy confidence building opponent.
- It can change the shot mix/style of play, that he uses in Game mode (play like different players)
- It can Drill, Play a Match, play tie-breakers
- It reacts to your shots, in drill mode he hits easier if you miss 3 shots in a row, and gets harder if it is too easy for you. In Game mode if you hit a weak shot he hits a harder shot, if you overpower his shot you will get a weak shot back or a winner.
- It actually counts the number of balls you hit in a session.
- It gives you verbal feedback on your performance. In real time.
- It outputs the raw data to a portable USB Thumb drive.
- You as a user can program any shot sequence you want to work on.
- It can run a complete pre-programed 1,2, 3, or 4 hour workout including a Cardio workout.
- It can be Portable (with some effort) or on a fixed court.
Boomer + Database + Analytics
- It rates you according to your NTRP rating every stroke.
- It tracks depth, width, Speed every stroke.
- It gives you a snapshot of where your game is at any given point of time.
- With the benchmarks, you can track your progress over time.
- It can assist you in your try-outs for Teams and Leagues
- It reports on 6 ways a Player can force an error out of you (Tennis Channels News clip on the Brain Game: Seven Ways to Force an Error by Craig O’Shannessy) plus 2.
- Consistency
- Direction
- Depth
- Height
- Spin
- Power level
- Pressure
- Speed
- Shot Sequence
Boomer + Database + Analytics + Video + Pro
- Add a professional to the mix; you should have a team that will make you unbeatable.
- The Pro can look at your weaknesses and create exit tactics (shot sequences) that will turn that weakness into a winning point.
- The Pro should be able to give you tactics that will utilize your strengths and maximize the points you win.
- The Pro should be able to reduce the number of errors you make with the above tactics.
- The Pro should be able to create weapons faster by seeing and tracking your speed increase, your power level as it goes up, your consistency improve, your reaction time speed up, your foot work improve(court coverage).
- There is less subjective decision making and more hardcore evidence of what is going on in the game.
- Even when you watch a video, you can only guess the speed or power level of a stroke.
- With Video you build better pictures of your game making it easier to play and perfect your game.
Well what would you pay?
Down Side???
- Boomer is design to play 1 player singles court. Numbers shifted for smaller court and larger court demenision. Dosen’t do well in Doubles.
- Boomer reacts to change on his side of the court – a person, a ball, a bird, spider webs in front of the camera, moving shadows on the court, lighting changes.
- all these issues can be addressed by an overseer/operator.
- Many people do not understand how Analytics will increase productivity in your workouts, shorten the learning curve, improve understanding of the game.
- Many people do not understand that this is bringing Professional Statics to the affordability and training levels of future players so that they can work as hard as they need to achive the goals and levels (High School team, College, National Professional, International Professional) they desire.