Tag: players

  • What’s New in Smashpoint 3 for iPhone iPad and Apple Watch

    We’ve been building Smashpoint for a long time, and this is the release we’re most excited to ship. Not because of any one feature, but because of what they add up to:

    Smashpoint finally does what we set out to build it for, turn every match you play into data you actually own, at whatever level of detail you want, shared with exactly who you choose.

    A New Design

    The app has been rebuilt from the ground up. New navigation, new layouts, light and dark themes that actually feel native, and a visual language that’s consistent whether you’re checking a score courtside or reviewing your stats later that night. It’s faster, it’s cleaner, and honestly, it’s the app we always wanted Smashpoint to look like. This is also the foundation for everything else in this release. The new features weren’t bolted onto the old app, they were designed in from the start.

    Five Levels of Tracking (Up From Three)

    Not every match deserves the same level of attention, and Smashpoint has never assumed it does. With 3.0, you now have five ways to track a match instead of three:

    • Games: the fastest way to record a result. Just the score.
    • Points: full point-by-point scoring with match flow.
    • Serve & Points: adds serve stats: first serve percentage, aces, double faults, points won on serve.
    • Point Outcomes: log winners and errors, so you know how points were actually won and lost.
    • Full Shot-Tracking: winners, errors, and shot types, for a complete picture of your game.

    Pick your depth before the first serve. A Tuesday night doubles match might get “Games.” A match you’re actually trying to learn from might get the full treatment. The point is that it’s your call, every time.

    Track Live, Broadcast Live

    This is the one we think people are going to love. When you want an audience, one tap opens the match up. Send the link, and anyone can follow along live, point by point — and when the match ends, that same link becomes the match page: final score, full stats, everything. One link, before and after. Text it, post it in the group chat, drop it in a club newsletter. Turn it off whenever you want, match by match.

    ELO Rankings

    Win-loss records tell you that you won. They don’t tell you much about who you beat. Smashpoint now calculates ELO ratings alongside traditional rankings, so your rating reflects the strength of your opponents, not just the number of matches you’ve won. Beat a tough player and it shows. Beat someone below your level and it barely moves the needle. It’s a more honest picture of where you actually stand — and it updates automatically every time you play. Learn more about Smashpoint ELO rankings.

    Publish Results Online

    Every match, group, and ranking in Smashpoint is private by default — that hasn’t changed and never will. But now, when you do want results visible beyond the people in the match, you can publish them: to a group’s standings page, to a public match page, wherever makes sense. It’s the same principle as live broadcasting — sharing is a decision you make, not something the app does for you.

    Smashpoint for AI Agents

    This one’s a little different from the rest, and it’s for the more technical players and organizers among you. Smashpoint now exposes your match and stats data through MCP — the protocol that lets AI tools like Claude connect directly to outside data sources. In practice, that means you can ask an AI assistant things like “what’s my head-to-head against Marcus” or “how has my ELO trended this season” and have it pull real answers straight from your Smashpoint data, instead of you digging through the app. We built the shot-by-shot tracking and the stats engine to be the best data layer in racquet sports — this is the first step in making that data actually useful to the tools you already use.

    Built for Everyone on the Court and Off It

    This release is for the player who wants to know if they’re actually improving. The parent following a match from three courts away. The club running a ladder. The federation overseeing sanctioned play across affiliated clubs. The doubles group that just wants an honest head-to-head record, once and for all.

    That’s always been the idea behind Smashpoint — every match becomes data, tracked at whatever depth you choose, shared only if and when you decide to. 3.0 is the clearest version of that idea we’ve built yet.

    Update your app and give it a try. We’d love to hear what you think. Get in touch.

  • Dynamic ELO Ratings Have Arrived on Smashpoint

    Dynamic ELO Ratings Have Arrived on Smashpoint

    We’ve all been there. You pack your bags, head to the courts, look across the net at a new hitting partner, and realize within three games that the skill levels are completely off.

    Either you’re scrambling just to get a ball back, or you’re holding back your own game to keep a rally going. In racquet sports, level-based matchmaking is everything.

    That is why we are thrilled to announce that Dynamic ELO Ratings are officially live on Smashpoint! Available right now for all users across our web platform at app.smashpoint.pro, this core analytical upgrade brings professional-grade ranking precision directly to your local courts.

    What is an ELO Rating?

    Originating in chess and widely adapted across professional sports and competitive esports, the ELO rating system measures a player’s relative skill level.

    Instead of static, bracketed ranking systems that only update once a year, Smashpoint’s built-in ELO engine recalculates your rating sequentially after every single match result.

    The Math: It’s Not Just About Winning, It’s About Who You Beat

    In a standard leaderboard, a win is just a win. But Smashpoint’s ELO engine operates on a sophisticated mathematical framework that calculates an Expected Score before you even step on the court:

    • If you defeat a heavily favored opponent, your rating jumps significantly.
    • If you lose to a player with a much higher rating, your ELO barely moves because the system already expected that outcome.
    • To keep your data unified and accurate, every player has one global ELO profile that travels with them, ensuring data liquidity no matter where they play.

    The Ultimate Clay-Courter? Tracking ELO by Surface

    A flat-hitting power player might look like a legend on indoor hard courts but completely lose their edge on slow, gritty red clay. True tennis data shouldn’t ignore the ground beneath your feet.

    That’s why we didn’t just build a single tracking metric. When you log into app.smashpoint.pro, your profile now displays a comprehensive ELO Dashboard Breakdown:

    Summary ELO: Your overarching, weighted global rating across all formats and matchups. This is your master seed.

    Surface-Specific ELO: Drill down into the exact environments where you thrive or struggle. Your profile dynamically splits your performance into four distinct court surfaces:

    • Hard
    • Clay
    • Grass
    • Carpet

    Now you can mathematically prove that you’re a 1600-level specialist on the turf, even if your hard-court grind sits at 1450.

    For the Power Users: Query Your ELO via the Smashpoint MCP

    Are you running deep performance analytics on your own data or building custom sports applications? We’ve got some incredible news for the builders and tech enthusiasts in our community.

    Alongside the web dashboard release, our Dynamic ELO data has been fully integrated into the Smashpoint Tennis MCP (Model Context Protocol).

    This means if you are utilizing local AI agents or platforms like Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT, your large language models can now query your live, real-time ELO ratings and surface-specific metrics seamlessly. You can ask your favorite AI platform things like “Analyze my head-to-head records against left-handed players relative to my current Clay Court ELO” and receive instant, professional-grade insights driven directly by our data pipelines.

    For Players: Find the Perfect Hitting Partner

    No more guessing games or awkward text threads trying to figure out if someone is a “true” intermediate.

    Flawless Matchmaking:
    Your Smashpoint ELO gives you a fluid, real-time indicator of your exact skill level.

    Track Your Real Progress:
    Watch your rating climb dynamically as you improve your game, string together wins, and conquer rival head-to-head (H2H) matchups.

    Every Game Matters:
    Because your rating updates sequentially, every match has real competitive stakes, pushing you to play your best from the first serve to match point.

    For Organizers: Build Flawless Competitions

    If you manage a club, school, university, or local league, you know that seeding can be an administrative nightmare. Manual seeding leads to unbalanced brackets, blowout matches, and frustrated players.

    Smashpoint’s global ELO engine changes the game for facility administrators:

    Balanced Groups & Flights:
    Automatically group players into competitive round-robins or flights where everyone is guaranteed tight, high-energy matches.

    Automated Club Ladders:
    Use real-time ELO data to anchor custom club ladders (like our Accrual or Frog ladder designs), letting the software handle the movement dynamically.

    Instant Seeding:
    Pull up-to-date player ratings directly into your tournament engine to create mathematically fair brackets in seconds.

    Pro Tip for Club Admins:
    Being part of an organization should enrich a player’s data, not fragment it. Organizations can seamlessly filter the global ELO to display localized “Club Leaderboards,” keeping your community connected without isolating their data into a silo.

  • Top 10 Reasons to Play Tennis

    play tennis

    Tennis the Sport for a Lifetime!

    YOUR BODY

    Get Fit
    Lose Weight. Burn Calories– An hour of singles play can burn 580-870 calories.
    (According to Oja, et al, Brit J Sports Med, 2016)

    Live Longer
    Playing just 3 hours/week will reduce your risk of heart disease 56%.
    (According to a 2016 Harvard University study)

    Strengthen Heart, Muscles and Bones
    Compared to other sports, tennis players have the lowest incidence of cardiovascular disease.
    (40-year study conducted by Johns Hopkins University)

    Develop Hand-Eye Coordination
    Playing tennis involves several skills that all contribute to good hand-eye coordination. You can improve your agility, balance, coordination, reaction time and more.

    YOUR LIFE

    Enjoy Family and Friends
    Great for the whole family no matter what your age. With minimal equipment needed and plenty of courts nearby, it’s easy to bring a friend or find one at the courts.

    Develop Teamwork and Sportsmanship
    From doubles play to learn and league play, tennis develops your ability to communicate and work together.

    Improve Social Skills
    Tennis outperforms all other sports in developing positive personality characteristics.
    (According to a study by Dr. Jim Gavin at Concordia University)

    tennis practice

    YOUR BRAIN

    Reduce Stress
    Tennis helps you deal with physical, mental, social and emotional challenges, which increases your capacity to deal with stress.

    Increase Brain Power
    From alertness to tactical thinking, tennis enhances the neural connections in your brain. Kids who play tennis regularly get better grades. (According to a 2013 USTA study)

    Learn to Solve Problems
    Tennis is a sport that is based on evaluating angles, geometry and physics to get the best result, which translates into better problem-solving off the court. In the late 1990s, several experts proposed that tennis, since it requires alertness and tactical thinking, may generate new connections between nerves in the brain and promote a lifetime of continuing brain development.

    Content provided by TIA – Tennis Industry Association. 

    ONLINE RESOURCES

    PlayTennis.com

    USTA – Lot’s of ways to play tennis

    Tennis Industry Association (USA)

    Play Tennis – LTA British Tennis

    DTB – Deutscher Tennis Bund

    ITF – International Tennis Federation

    Play & Stay

    French Tennis Federation