Appy tennis fans
More than half a million spectators will enter the grounds in south-west London this week, yet this number represents only a fraction of those following the tournament through the official Wimbledon app. The app provides point-by-point scores from every match across all courts within seconds.
This platform operates year-round, catering to Wimbledon enthusiasts by allowing fans to purchase tickets, players to arrange racket restringing, and, during the other 49 weeks, enabling All England Club members to book courts.
During the tournament, there is a significant surge in user engagement — last year saw 18 billion interactions from 21 million individual users, with even higher figures anticipated this year. A dedicated team of IBM technicians operates from their so-called “bunker” located deep within the main administration building, ensuring that the flow of information meets the high demand.
The current championship also marks the first year of what Fred Baker, sports lead for IBM Consulting EMEA, describes as a “complete rebuild” of the Wimbledon app and website, which have been “redesigned from the ground up.”
“We’ve launched and enhanced key features,” Baker says, “like the live ‘likelihood to win’, which has an added feature for key moments and explains the turning points, and MatchChat, where fans can ask questions about a match as it’s progressing in real time.”
Nevertheless, some queries remain off-limits.
“There are some we don’t want to engage in,” Baker explains. “If someone asks which player is dating which player, we’ll steer the person back on topic.”
Birds stop play
While pigeon issues have largely diminished at Wimbledon, largely thanks to Rufus the Hawk’s effective avian deterrence over the past 18 years, a new avian presence has emerged. The decline in pigeons appears to have created an opportunity for the smaller and arguably more elegant pied wagtail, several of which have established nesting sites within the sliding roof mechanism of No 1 Court.
This new development even caused a brief interruption during the first match on No 1 Court on Thursday. A pied wagtail parent, busy feeding its chicks, landed in the tramlines amid the game, seemingly unaware that 12,000 spectators were watching Madison Keys preparing to serve just a few feet away.
Rockets fizzle out
Last year, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard set a new grand slam record by delivering a 153mph (246km/h) serve, surpassing the previous 148mph record set by Taylor Dent in 2010. At the time, Perricard predicted that “260 or 270km/h is maybe the next one.”
However, this record appears secure for now. Thiago Tirante (238km/h) and Ben Shelton (235km/h), the only players to serve faster than 232km/h so far this week, did not advance to the second round. Meanwhile, Mpetshi Perricard recorded a comparatively modest top speed of 229km/h during his first-round loss to Yannick Hanfmann.
