Whether you're looking to improve your game or just playing for fun, tennis is a game that's difficult to play alone. However, earlier this week, I passed my local tennis courts and saw someone playing against a robot.
The robot in question is the Acemate tennis robot, a product released last year that has won various accolades for its abilities. Seeing it in the wild, though, actually made me stop and stare.
I've seen players use traditional automatic ball machines before, but this is a different level. Moving on its four wheels, it shifts around the court like a player, launching balls at different heights and angles, with different amounts of spin, at up to 60mph, to keep you on your toes.
At first, I assumed you just fill the basket with balls and then collect them all when it runs out, but then I noticed it doing something surprising. When the player returned the shot, the robot moved into position to catch the ball itself, stocking up its ammunition for the next round.
This, in theory, means that you can keep playing indefinitely – or at least until the robot's battery runs out. Which, according to the website, is about two hours of play. In practice, I noticed it wasn't able to catch every shot, so unless your aim back is good (or you have a lot of balls – it takes up to 80), you will probably have to stop to refill eventually.
The Acemate comes with an app, which connects to the device via Bluetooth. On here, you can adjust the serve interval, ball speed and movement. It uses a 4K binocular camera with AI tracking, so it can provide feedback on your performance. The app will then give you training data on how you performed, with full coach-like analysis, ball distribution and speeds.
If not having someone to play against is holding you back from hitting a few balls, or you want to improve your game without the cost of a tennis coach, the Acemate robot looks like a great idea. It costs £2,199 on the Acemate website right now. Padel fans will be pleased to know a Padel version is also coming later this year.
3 more great tennis robots
While this robot doesn't move to catch the ball, it does have a ball pickup mechanism in its base, so it can just collect the balls as it goes.
