Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – The Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center, home of the Virginia Tech men’s and women’s tennis programs, recently received a major technology upgrade as the PlaySight Smart Court was installed on all six indoor courts. Virginia Tech is the first university in the country to have six courts with the system.
As both teams traveled to New York in the fall for the ITA Indoor National Championships, Virginia Tech’s men’s tennis head coach Jim Thompson saw the system for the first time and returned to Blacksburg with hopes of installing the PlaySight system on campus. He brought the project to the attention of Senior Associate Athletics Director Tom Gabbard who oversees the athletics facilities as well as serving as the sport administrator for tennis.
The two presented the idea to Director of Athletics Whit Babcock in order to get the go-ahead to start a fund raising campaign. It was approved and with the help of Lu Merritt and the HokieClub they were able to obtain the initial funding to get the project off the ground.
Installed last week, the PlaySight system has already generated a lot of excitement around the two programs. The PlaySight Smart Court analyzes all aspects of game play, including but not limited to, serve speed, ball rotation, etc. PlaySight also stores all of the teams’ workouts and home matches in the cloud, so that players and coaches are able to go back and review the play either through the on-court consoles or online at home.
Not only can the system be used as a teaching and coaching tool it also allows for all six courts to be live streamed on HokieSports.com during the men’s and women’s home tennis matches.
In addition to serving the university’s NCAA Division I tennis programs, the system will also be able to be utilized by the community membership of the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center.
Learn more about PlaySight here.