Tech in TT: Artificial Intelligence, Game Changer in Table Tennis?

 

Let artificial intelligence be your virtual coach and video editor!

Technology innovation has transformed the sport of table tennis in many ways. Thanks to the introduction of Table Tennis Review (TTR), umpires are able to make more fair judgments during matches. Whereas outside the sport itself, data visualization allows broadcasters to add depth to their commentary offering a comprehensive perspective to their audiences. Technology in table tennis may seem to be sophisticated but let's keep it simple, it is all about mastering numbers games. Professional players have been collecting and analyzing in-game statistics to up their game but, perhaps, in near future video analysis conducted by artificial intelligence (AI) will be available just a tap away benefiting millions of professional and amateur players across the globe. 

Israeli computer engineer, Yuri Miroshnik, launched the project BeTTerplay.ai 2 years ago. He hopes to develop an AI table tennis analysis tool to make video/ statistics analysis service affordable and accessible by coaches and players regardless of their levels and locations.

At this moment, BeTTerplay.ai offers a free beta version which enables users to create highlights clip of their games that is usually 3 to 4 times shorter than the original game. All you need to do is to record your game and upload the video (via mobile devices or PC) to BeTTerplay.ai. Then, AI will do the video editing for you and send the edited version to your registered email. Not only does it save your time for sorting out special points of the match, it also prepares ready-made social media clips of your game for you.

The project adopts the advanced Deep Learning based Computer Vision techniques to enable AI to extract every element of the game (stroke and its type, bounce, move, direction, placement, serving side, winning side, etc). Along the time, it plans to develop a mobile app and provide personalize statistical analysis upon natural language requests. For instance, users can simply key in “calculate the success rate of the along the line (parallel) forehand loops against the diagonal chop in the last third of every set (after 8 points won by some side)” and AI will create a short clip of such episodes only. Yuri Miroshnik, the founder of the project, feels optimistic that in few years the computing power of the GPUs in the mobile device will suffice to run the analysis locally without a need to upload video to the cloud speeding up the process of video analysis.

The service of AI video analysis is created for both the professionals and the amateurs. In fact, Yuri Miroshnik himself, who is also an amateur table tennis player, observed that amateurs usually learn about their strengths and weaknesses through watching their own game from the side. It’s much easier for coaches to explain what to improve by watching video and showing to a player specific moments. That's why he wants to 'democratize' and popularize this table tennis video analysis tool by the means of AI technology to help every coach and player to gain insights from the analyzed games efficiently.

Despite the advantages and convenience that AI brings, the project did not aim to replace coaches. Yuri Miroshnik advocates technology should help people enjoying the game more. 

"We all like the feeling of playing table tennis. We work hard to improve our technique, we want to win, no matter whether we play in some local league or in an important tournament. The technology should help to obtain the insights of where to improve, what to strengthen, what tactics to choose against some specific player, and so on. It will help coaches to do their work better but definitely not replace them."

Application of artificial intelligence is booming across industries, but in sports the usage of such innovation may be still at a budding stage. The initial challenge for the project team is mainly about the algorithm convergence and optimizing the GPU usage. In addition, there's also a long list to work on in order to optimize users' experience and present information in a more digestible way. Yuri Miroshnik would like to thank all the users who have sent him warm thank-you emails and feedback as they are huge motivations for him to keep up with the project during his downtime. One of the most unforgettable endorsement comes from former world champion Werner Schlager who recommended Yuri Miroshnik to get one foot in the door even the full set of features are yet to be ready. The project still has a long way to go. Yuri Miroshnik is currently looking for investors who will be ready to join. He is confident that with an external funding, the progress can be accelerated significantly as many capabilities can be developed in parallel.

Meet Yuri Miroshnik, a computer engineer and the founder of the BeTTerplay.ai project.

Coming up next week: 2020 Chinese Junior Nationals Championships Highlights generated via BeTTerplay.ai