Mining Hawk-Eye data. It’s time to show the tennis world what they’re missing out on.

It’s been a little quiet around here recently, so I wanted to update you all on what’s been happening at Gamesetmap. The good news is there has been plenty of great work going on.

As many of you know I have been chasing down access to Hawk-Eye data for over 18 months now. One of my earliest posts on Gamesetmap outlined the challenges of getting access to the data. You can check out my post titled “Unlocking Hawk-Eye data: What it means for tennis, the ATP, WTA and ITF”.

Today, I’m please to announce that I now have access to a select number of matches, with the opportunity to purchase further matches in future. This is an enormous breakthrough for tennis, and for Gamesetmap!

Hawk-Eye tennis dataLet the Hawk-Eye data mining journey begin. A screen dump of the raw ball trajectory data from Hawk-Eye.

Generating the ball trajectory from the raw Hawk-Eye data was made possible with the help of Darren O’Shaughnessy. Darren runs a small consulting company in sports analytics and informatics called Ranking Software.

Late last year I created a 3D Diorama using Hawk-Eye player tracking data from the same matches (see below):

A Diorama of Player Movement in Sport

The two datasets (player tracking and ball trajectory) provide an insight into tennis matches that has rarely be seen before.

Stay tuned over the next few months as I dig through these fabulous datasets to uncover the spatial patterns that exist in tennis.

Visualisations created using 3D ArcGIS.

1 thought on “Mining Hawk-Eye data. It’s time to show the tennis world what they’re missing out on.

  1. This is so cool! I am interested in the various parabolic flight paths of a tennis ball…as well as the swerve path on a forehand and backhand slice. Knowing which way they bounce helps with anticipation. Would like to write about these arcs one day when I understand them better. Would love some 3D illustrations!

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