A Daily Star reporter has defeated a robot programmed to replicate the serve of world number one Jannik Sinner, and is now calling out the real player for a match. Dan Grennan faced a seven-foot mechanical arm that fires balls at speeds up to 150mph, designed to mimic the exact speed, angle and trajectory of Sinner's 142mph serve.
Robot Serve Defeated
The robot, created by a firm called The 5Gs, can process data from a Centre Court serve and fire it down the court moments later. Grennan, who plays tennis about ten times a year, managed to return three consecutive shots aimed at his backhand. The first ball was fired down his backhand side, which he returned with relative ease. The next two shots came down the same direction, and both were returned and landed in play with no response from the robot.
The score stands at Love 40 to Grennan. Now, I am calling out the real Sinner to finish off the game, Grennan said. I play tennis maybe 10 time a year and I just made your serve look amateur. Your reputation is on the line, Sinner, finish the game or prepare to have your name destroyed down my local pub.
How the Robot Works
The firm's founder and technical director Oliver Kibblewhite explained to the Daily Star how the machine works. This is a fully customised tennis practice machine. Most tennis practice machines go up to 70 or 80mph for your average tennis player, Kibblewhite said. We are talking about Wimbledon so we need to be able to do up to the record 153mph. They are not commercially available because the market for them is tiny.
Kibblewhite added: We have three rotating wheels offset at 120 degrees from each other. We can vary the wheels independently, this means we can put as much spin on the ball as we want. It can move up and down as well as left and right to any position on the serve line. The price of the robot could not be disclosed.
