Tennis Software

[rschmidt]

Hello,

I'm a software developer as well as a 4.5 tennis player. I write software for Apple platforms as well as web apps. I'm looking to get into the tennis industry and researching what software I could write.

So, I'm wondering if there is a market or demand for tennis software out there. What apps do you wish there existed? Would you be interested in apps that kept score, charted matches and kept stats? What about keeping track of your tournament schedule and matches you've played and scouting reports on opponents, etc.

Thanks,
Rod Schmidt
infiniteNIL Software
www.infinitenil.com

[cluckcluck]

An app for stringers...by name, racquet, string, tension, date, etc.

[beernutz]

Can you re-engineer tennislink please?

[schmke]

Originally Posted by beernutz

Can you re-engineer tennislink please?

I hear frequent complaints about TennisLink in general, and I have some of my own as well, but what specifically would you like to see or get from the TennisLink web-site?

More or different information?

More summaries? Or more details?

Detailed rating information? (probably never happen, but we can dream)

Easier ways to navigate/find a league, team, or individual?

[beernutz]

Originally Posted by schmke

I hear frequent complaints about TennisLink in general, and I have some of my own as well, but what specifically would you like to see or get from the TennisLink web-site?

More or different information?

More summaries? Or more details?

Detailed rating information? (probably never happen, but we can dream)

Easier ways to navigate/find a league, team, or individual?

Some annoyances:

If you are looking at your league results and click on the name of an opponent you'll be shown the opponent's results for the year in which you played them. If you want to look at other years you have to copy their name, go back to the main search screen, paste it into the Stats and Standings
Enter player name, USTA Membership #, team # or match # form. IMO its clunky when compared to our local league's website which allows you, once you've located a player, to see their results for any given year or for their entire history on one page. In fact on the local league's page, when you are looking at your own results, you can quickly filter them so that you are looking at how you did against any specific opponent you've previously played.

I have seen instances where I will be looking at a player's record and want to know if they are self-rated, computer-rated or benchmarked. I copy their name exactly from the results page and paste it into the Find NTRP Rating Info Enter USTA Membership #, team # or player name form and the player can't be found.

I am not a big fan of the USTA's decision to require you to use their "Back to Previous Page" link instead of just being able to use the BACK button when you are navigating between search result pages.

Our local league's website which serves a similar purpose allows a player who sees an incorrect result has been entered to notify both captains by clicking a link. To my knowledge tennislink doesn't have this.

There are more annoyances I've found with regard to researching teams and looking at their results for both regular season and playoffs which I just did recently. I just think a lot of the navigation for tennislink is non-intuitive and though I can almost always get to the information I'm looking for I just think the process is often unnecessarily involved.

[OrangePower]

Originally Posted by rschmidt

Hello,

I'm a software developer as well as a 4.5 tennis player. I write software for Apple platforms as well as web apps. I'm looking to get into the tennis industry and researching what software I could write.

So, I'm wondering if there is a market or demand for tennis software out there. What apps do you wish there existed? Would you be interested in apps that kept score, charted matches and kept stats? What about keeping track of your tournament schedule and matches you've played and scouting reports on opponents, etc.

Thanks,
Rod Schmidt
infiniteNIL Software
www.infinitenil.com

Tennislink is not great, but I can't think how an external app would be able to do much to help.

League captains spend a lot of time organizing, scheduling, and communicating with their team. There are some tools out there, but I don't think there is a "killer app" for that. I'm sure you'll get lots more feedback on what captains would ideally want in an app. Not sure how you monetize it though, if that's a consideration.

Other things you mentioned:
- Apps that kept score, charted matches and kept stats?
I'm sure people would love that, as long as it comes with a helper elf that does the data entry during the course of a match. I don't see players actually keeping track on a point by point basis themselves.
- What about keeping track of your tournament schedule and matches you've played and scouting reports on opponents, etc.
Eh. Doesn't seem meaty enough to require a dedicated app.

[LuckyR]

Since it would a phone ap, a vacation ap that would auto dial clubs, pros and local players who are available to hit with visiting players. You could register for them to call you by the location.

[Mauvaise]

Originally Posted by beernutz

I am not a big fan of the USTA's decision to require you to use their "Back to Previous Page" link instead of just being able to use the BACK button when you are navigating between search result pages.

This is one of my biggest gripes. The back button is so natural and instinctive to use - there is no reason to purposefully *break* it on Tennislink.

Player's ratings are not always consistent. On the team roster it may list them as, say, 3.5, but if you actually click on their profile they are listed at 4.0.

My biggest issue with Tennislink is as a captain they make it so blasted annoying to enter a score. You would think you should just be able to go to the team you want to enter the score for, click on the match date to take you to the Match Scorecard page for that match and record the scores. You would be wrong. Despite it's title, you can not record scores from the scorecard section. You have to go to your homepage and click the "record a score" link. Better hope you have your match number handy! WHY? It makes zero sense.


I swear someone had to TRY to make Tennislink as difficult to work with/navigate as it is.

And it's 2012 - let's have a nice, clean, speedy mobile version. Sometimes you need info while you're "out in the field".

[beernutz]

Originally Posted by Mauvaise

This is one of my biggest gripes. The back button is so natural and instinctive to use - there is no reason to purposefully *break* it on Tennislink.

Player's ratings are not always consistent. On the team roster it may list them as, say, 3.5, but if you actually click on their profile they are listed at 4.0.

My biggest issue with Tennislink is as a captain they make it so blasted annoying to enter a score. You would think you should just be able to go to the team you want to enter the score for, click on the match date to take you to the Match Scorecard page for that match and record the scores. You would be wrong. Despite it's title, you can not record scores from the scorecard section. You have to go to your homepage and click the "record a score" link. Better hope you have your match number handy! WHY? It makes zero sense.


I swear someone had to TRY to make Tennislink as difficult to work with/navigate as it is.

And it's 2012 - let's have a nice, clean, speedy mobile version. Sometimes you need info while you're "out in the field".

Plus the Back button is ALWAYS visible whereas I find that I often have to scroll up to even see the 'Back to Previous Page' link.

I've never been a captain but I've talked to captains who have expressed similar complaints to your own with regard to entering scores on tennislink.

[catfish]

League scheduling software for league coordinators. A program that could handle multiple teams in multiple levels playing at the same location, and handle blackout dates would be great.

[cknobman]

I am a software developer and I get quite frustrated with tennislink myself.
My main issue is the fact that there is no way to save searches (other than bookmarks) so every time I visit the site and want to look for tournaments, see my record, see my team standings, etc.... I need to perform a new search.

I also get frustrated with the fact that the USTA made an iPhone app but has made nothing for other platforms like Android.
I contacted the USTA multiple times about these issues and they unfortunately did not help. I even offered to do development work for them for free but they said no.

So I made my own mobile site for some small help with Tennislink. As stated the site is designed for mobile devices but it will work just fine in a desktop as well.
What the site accomplishes is:

• A layout suited for mobile devices
• Make searching easy and quick on a mobile device
• Ability to save searches of any type

Since the USTA would not work with me there was only so much I could accomplish as my abilities were limited to only what I could reverse engineer out of their system myself. The site basically only functions as a quick start that jumps into the actual TennisLink site after you perform a search.

This little mobile site comes in handy for me as I have found I use it on my phone and computer on a regular basis since I can create a search for anything and save it, making it possible to just click a link the next time I want to see those search results.

Try it out if you would like and please feel free to send me any constructive criticism and or suggestions.
http://ustamobileaccess.azurewebsites.net/

[dblsonly]

How about an app that can track your NTRP rating and estimate your rating after every match. I don't know how you would do this, but I would definitely buy this app.

[schmke]

Originally Posted by dblsonly

How about an app that can track your NTRP rating and estimate your rating after every match. I don't know how you would do this, but I would definitely buy this app.

I'm not yet able to update it on demand after every match, but I can give estimates periodically and am presently doing estimates of year-end ratings. See http://computerratings.blogspot.com/...-soon-get.html.