Tennis Australia created its own “skins” to represent players, chair umpires and ball persons.
“The wonderful part of it is it’s the players’ actual movement. It’s the actual trajectory of the ball,” Machar Reid, Tennis Australia’s director of innovation, told The Associated Press. “We’re taking the real into the unreal. That’s part of the magic.”
Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam champion at age 21, called it “a good alternative.”
Like many players preparing for future opponents, Fernandez often scours YouTube to try to find footage of past matches to aid with scouting. That, Fernandez said with a chuckle, is how she accidentally discovered the cartoonish replays from Melbourne Park that have been creating a buzz among the competitors.
She was having trouble finding a certain match when she noticed a thumbnail photo of two players, Fernandez said.
“So I click on it and think, ‘This is it! Finally! I have one,'” Fernandez said. “Nope. It’s a Wii character, which is hilarious.”
Jiri Lehecka, a Czech player seeded 24th in Australia, was checking social media the other day when he came across a “replay” of 2021 US Open champion Daniil Medvedev’s avatar destroying a net camera by smacking it repeatedly with his racket during a first-round victory.
“I had no idea that something like that exists, so for me, it was quite funny to see that,” Lehecka said. “Maybe I will see myself as a game character one day. We will see.”
