The Lawn Tennis Association, Great Britain’s governing body for the sport, is collaborating with the BBC and design and innovation company AKQA to give blind and partially sighted fans an enhanced audio experience of the Queens Club Championships this weekend.
The technology, “Action Audio,’’ produces a livestream through the LTA website that enables low- vision viewers to follow the speed and trajectory of the players’ shots, utilizing the customary sound languages for the blind. Listeners will be able to gauge in real time how close a ball was to the line, whether it was a backhand or forehand and who won the point.
To accomplish this, AKQA uses data from Hawk-Eye’s ball monitoring system to create a high-pitched beep for forehands and a low-pitched beep for backhands. More sounds emanate when a ball lands on the sideline or baseline — three tones when it is close to the line, two when it is further from the line and one when the ball is hit down the middle. A louder ping is heard when a player hits a shot, fading as the ball moves across the net. If a user has headphones that separate sounds from the left and right ear, they can determine which side of the court the ball has traveled.
Initially trialed at the 2021 Australian Open, Action Audio has never before been initialized in the UK. The innovation is tied to the LTA’s recent inclusion strategy for the limited sight audience, a campaign entitled “See Sport Differently.’’ The goal in future years is to deploy AKQA’s technology at other events in the UK, such as Wimbledon.
