IBM has unveiled an Android application designed to change the way tennis fans keep up to date with all the action going down at Wimbledon 2009.  The app called Seer features location-aware visualization built for the T-Mobile G1.  Using augmented reality, Seer works as a real-time guide and interactive map and provides users up to the second scores. Like other augmented reality apps Seer Android Beta uses the camera and lays content and map tools right on top.

Everything from tennis matches to dining and points of interest will be plotted using the combination of GPS, camera, compass.  Users get a  ‘heads up display’ to so they can see exactly what it is they are looking at.  One added feature that other AR apps don’t use is tying in live data.  For instance if you point your G1 towards a tennis court, users not only get basic information like the court number, but also details about the current and subsequent matches.

These applications were designed with tennis fans in mind and add a whole new dimension to the event whether you are attending in person or sitting in your garden 5,000 miles away.  I can see the incredible potential here to change the way people will engage with major sporting and other events both now and in the future, as the applications help address common challenges such as getting lost, encountering queues or momentarily missing some of the action. – Rob McCowen, Marketing Director at The AELTC.

IBM will be showing off the new app and giving demonstrations at Wimbledon.

Try these exercises to build core strength and improve speed and agility on the tennis court

Whitney Pedone of Hawaii Kai has always been an athlete. So, her fitness routine has got to be fun and somewhat competitive.

Tennis is the game she loves the most; therefore, her entire fitness regimen revolves around that sport. In fact, she plays nearly every day and cross-trains heavily with running and functional weight training.

“I love working out outdoors and I love the game,” says Pedone, 39. “It’s quick, it’s fun and it can get pretty intense sometimes.

“I really enjoy the camaraderie of the sport. You make a lot of good friends who always bring a lot of good food to the after-parties!”.
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Something Cute on the Tennis Court

Hartland High tennis player overcomes disability, pain and naysayers

Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News

Hartland

When the coach first saw her, Kelsey Retich played tennis on a crutch. Retich brandished her racket with her right hand, used her left to shift the crutch and moved about mostly on her left leg.

Her right leg ends halfway below the knee, lasting evidence of a lawnmower accident when Retich was 3 years old.

“I’ve got my assistant coach telling me, ‘You’ve got to see this girl!’ ” said Judy Jagdfeld, girls varsity tennis coach at Highland High. “She’s on a crutch. She’s hitting with one hand. I’m playing her at doubles. You will not believe this!

“I said, ‘My God, she’s an athlete!’ ”

And so she is.

Despite her disability, multiple surgeries, the continual pain about which her mother, Vicky, says she utters barely a word, Kelsey Retich, 17, is an athlete.

In 2008, a year after Jagdfeld first observed her on the courts at Hartland High, Retich played on a prosthetic lower leg. She was the top-ranked singles player on the junior varsity. This year, Retich not only made varsity, she is the fourth-ranked singles player on the team. She garnered a first and a second at tournaments this spring. She was 14-8 overall.

The solace of sports

And while it may be partly because of a successful athlete’s ability to remain constantly within the moment, Retich dismisses assertions about her courage and rare accomplishment with a shrug and a little laugh.

“I don’t know,” Retich said. “It’s just what I do.”

“I would have some pain in the bottom of my leg,” she finally admitted. “With all of the pounding from the running, I would bruise it a lot. But I love it, being active, being able to get out there and do something.

“I used to be very angry about my situation, just because I didn’t understand why me and why people were so mean, rather than just accepting me for whom I am. And I don’t know when, but I just got over it. I felt, like, well, people can believe just whatever they want. That’s their opinion.”

Retich says she probably would not have made it from crutch to prosthetic without the help of a “no-cut” program for tennis in which Hartland and about a dozen other schools in Metro Detroit participate. It is sponsored by the United States Tennis Association. It kept her in the game, while her skills developed.

“I probably wouldn’t be playing tennis today, if there was no no-cut program,” said Retich, a candid, well-spoken girl who maintains a 3.9 grade-point average.

The accident occurred nearly 15 years ago.

Retich was running at play, trying to catch up to her mother, who was driving a lawnmower. She ran along the side of a small incline, slipped, fell and slid into the blades. At that moment, she says, her good fortune began when the mower immediately ran over a large branch, which caused her mother to stand up to clear it.

“It was one of those lawnmowers that turns off automatically when you stand up,” Retich said. “If not for that, it would have been much worse.”

Still, athletics is what pulled her through the tough times. It always has.

“The only person she ever had to compete against was herself,” said Vicky Retich, who got her daughter on horseback at an early age. “That is why I got her involved with horseback riding when she was real tiny, because I thought it was something that she, herself, could succeed or fail at.”

Soccer and a little softball followed. Then, basketball.

And, yes, the jump shot and rebounding were both very much a part of Retich’s “game.”

“Some of the kids would make fun, saying peg leg and stuff like that,” Retich said, dismissing the memories. “I kind of learned to shrug it off.”

A softball coach also seemed to take little interest in the girl with a disability, and then a soccer coach cut her.

“I was devastated, because I had played soccer since I was 7,” she said. “I was bawling, and my mom dragged me back to school because she wanted him to tell me why I was cut. He basically said I lacked the footwork.”

Retich still doesn’t buy the explanation. She thinks she played well, and that the coach was intimidated by her disability.

Kelsey hits the tennis courts

When she returned home, Retich remained upset. But in a rush of the resilience that marks her life, she called out to her mother to contact the tennis coaches at Hartland.

“Thank you, soccer!” Jagdfeld said, thrusting a clenched fist skyward and laughing at the irony. “But part of the reason this story is taking place is because of the no-cut program.”

The United States Tennis Association organizes a national no-cut program at schools. The USTA hopes to encourage participation among kids who have never played, those who do not play well, the obese and others.

For Retich, it meant surviving any cut as she volleyed on a crutch her freshman year.

“And so, this past spring, she came out and she had been playing and she got the No. 4 singles spot,” Jagdfeld said. “Out of 16 girls, she came in No. 4.”

In addition to help from the USTA, her coaches and a group of “strong women and friends in her life,” Vicky Retich said.

Athletes Unlimited, in Troy, helped pay for an advanced prosthetic that allows Retich enormous flexibility and strength in her right leg. Mike Henry of Novi, who is an amputee and runs a company called Northwest Orthotics, also has strongly mentored Retich, making suggestions about the discomfort and pain and how to go about playing sports with a disability.

“I really think the sky’s the limit for her,” Vicky Retich said.

Vicky Retich knows her daughter is in continual pain. But she also knows what a fine athlete and person she is.

“She never tells anybody that it hurts, until she gets in bed and then I look at that face and I say, ‘It hurts.’ And she says, ‘Yeah,’ ” Vicky said.

It has been inspiring to coach her, Jagdfeld says. But she barely notices the disability, amid all the tennis.

“The determination and tenacity in her life, she carries that out to the court,” Jagdfeld said. “That’s what makes her a little bit different from everybody else.

“Every kid on my team wants to win. Kelsey doesn’t want to lose. There’s a difference.”

gkrupa@detnews.com (313) 222-2359

Every year around May the pro tennis players make the switch from the hard courts in the US to the clay courts of Europe in their quest to be the world’s best. Playing on clay forces the players to make changes in their game and as we know not many players are able to adapt completely and win on both the hard and clay court surfaces. Amongst the men, only Rafa Nadal has proved he can win consistently on both, while the women have only seen Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova as perfect examples.

The differences between playing on a hard or grass court and on clay are are logical as well as tactical. Here are a few:

1. The clay court is softer and therefore puts less stress on the players’ joints.

2. The ball moves slower on most clay courts than on hard courts. This means players cannot dominate with their serves.

3. The ball “sits up” more on clay, which means that it seems to hang in the air ready to be hit. This is why players hit more topspin shots on clay.

4. Baseline ground strokes are much more prevalent than volleys on clay because of the reasons described above. The players find it difficult to hit a good approach shot. Failure to hit a good approach may allow their opponent to have a chance to hit a passing shot.

5. Top players slide into shots on clay. This is more difficult to do on other surfaces.

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/29302/queens-of-the-court-tennis-stars

It’s a whole new world for Wimbledon now, after the crossing of the roof rubicon. Midnight feasts of strawberries and cream, a spot of nightclubbing after a five-setter. Perhaps even pick up the morning papers.

It was confirmed yesterday that there will be no time limit on matches now that the roof has had its baptism. “It could go on all night,” a Wimbledon spokesman said. “There’s no limit or cut-off. We will play to the finish — whatever time that may be.”

Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the All England Club, said: “The mantra is that it’s an outdoor summer event, and we’ve been blessed with sunshine, but if the circumstances dictate, that’s what [the roof] is there for.”

Nearly 20,000 fans, including 4,000 on the hill outside Centre Court, stayed to the triumphant end of Andy Murray’s five-set victory on Monday night, which finished at 10.38pm.

Wimbledon officials confirmed that they would consider bringing in floodlights next year for spectators outside the court.

Late-night tennis will not cause problems with the local council either. David Simpson, Merton Council’s environment chief, said that it had placed no restrictions on the All England Club and had granted extended licences to the pubs in Wimbledon Village. He added: “The tennis fans are a responsible and well-behaved crowd and do not normally cause us concern.”

It is also likely to benefit the All England Club’s coffers. The estimated £25 million-a-year television income would increase by as much as a quarter if the matches were regularly allowed to run later, according to industry figures.

BBC One achieved a 12.6 million peak audience for the closing moments of the match on Monday.

Late matches would also increase Wimbledon’s value in the United States, where the tournament is broadcast by NBC. Matches running until midnight in London would finish at 7pm on the East Coast, right at the beginning of prime time in the world’s biggest television market.

Kevin Alavy, of the specialist sports media consultacy known as futures sport + entertainment, said that midnight finishes were already a feature of the Australian Open, where the time difference helped to attract the European television market.