Tennis

A robot that can track your position on the court, serve you a range of shots, and simulate actual tennis matches has raised over $1.7 million on Kickstarter. With weeks still left in the campaign, there's plenty of time to get in on the action.

Table tennis is one of those sports that most people would likely assume is simply unplayable by the blind. An Australian student, however, is now using cameras and speakers to get unsighted individuals in on the ping pong action.

In fast-paced sports such as tennis, keeping your eye on the ball – and on your opponent – is essential to success. The FalconFrames wearable was designed with that fact in mind, as it's claimed to help boost its user's neuro-visual skills.

Tennis players are susceptible to wrist cartilage injuries, which may not even present any symptoms at first. A van-based MRI system was designed with that in mind, as it can spot such injuries right at the tennis court, before they become serious.

Monitoring your performance can help you improve in pretty much any sport, and that includes table tennis. The German-designed Janova paddle was created with this fact in mind, as it tracks your strokes while you play.

Carlo Ratti Associati serves a slice of bonkers blue sky architecture with its "Playscraper." Also referred to as the Tennis Tower, the sporty skyscraper would stack eight tennis courts on top of each other to reach a height of 90 m.

​In a typical tennis practise session, a LOT of balls end up strewn about the court. Bending over and picking them all up is just part of the deal – but perhaps it doesn't have to be, if the ball-collecting Tennibot reaches production.

​It’s estimated that some 230,000 tennis balls get tossed each year after the four Grand Slam tournaments. Now London-based design company Rogue Projects hopes to turn those used balls into functioning and highly portable wireless speakers.

Developed by TuringSense, Pivot is designed to replace motion capture technology with a system that incorporates nine different sensors, each about the size and weight of an acorn, to provide instant feedback on a player’s biomechanics without wires or cameras. ​

A tennis club in Amsterdam has a novel approach to providing both a clubhouse and bleachers. It has combined the two. The clubhouse at IJburg tennis club is designed in such a way that spectators can climb it and watch matches on the adjacent court.​

Dubai has more than its fair share of outlandish buildings, but 8 + 8 Concept Studio's recently-revealed proposal for an underwater tennis center would probably take the biscuit for the craziest yet – in the unlikely event it is ever built, anyway ...

Sony is looking to get into the sports electronics game, with the introduction of its creatively-named Smart Tennis Sensor. Things like shot count, ball impact spot, swing speed, ball speed and ball spin can be detected.