"Flow Motion" Tennis
CBS, the official TV broadcaster in the United States for the U.S. Open tennis tournament, introduced a new technology for the 2008 tournament telecasts, i.e. “Flow Motion”. This fascinating new technology allowed TV tennis fans to see the running “tracks” that players made around the court during rallies, as well as the total distance covered during a point. Flow Motion leaves a “mark” on each spot on the court/TV screen where a player hits a shot and then trails the player as he/she runs around
during the rally. Someone once told me that soccer players run up to four miles during a soccer game. I’m not sure if that figure is accurate, but they definitely do a lot of running. How much court do you think tennis players cover during a long, hard-running rally? In several examples during the U.S. Open telecasts, the tennis pros such as Venus Williams ran over 50 yards during one single rally! No wonder men’s five set matches, especially on clay where players can retrieve so many more shots, can be so exhausting!
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