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Not so long ago, Emma Raducanu was on her phone when she found herself wondering what her comprehensive usage of ChatGPT said about her own character. “I use Chat a lot,” Raducanu says, laughing. “Every small thing I do it and I got this idea. So, you know how Spotify do a Spotify Wrapped? I asked ChatGPT to make me a Chat Wrapped, and it was giving me a rundown on my personality.
“I was like: ‘It’s a little bit too accurate.’ It was very clear, very concise. No nonsense, straight into the question. I was like: ‘OK, I can relate maybe. Some of that is true.’”
The emergence of generative AI has led to a shift in society and changed the way many people seek information. Like everyone, this generation of tennis players must figure out where these tools fit into their lives.
There are some who believe AI can provide them with an advantage on the court. Jessica Pegula, whose husband sometimes makes AI-generated reports of her opponents solely for his own amusement, learned recently that someone on the tour, whom she declines to name, is drawing on ChatGPT and similar tools to scout the playing styles of future opponents. “I don’t know if they fully, 100% listen to it, but I think maybe they cross-reference to see how accurate it is,” she says. “It’s not bad. It just summarises everything and you can make it maybe very simplified or make it complicated.”
Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, explains how she recently found herself on ChatGPT before a match with a completely unfamiliar opponent after dropping down to compete on the lower-level ITF circuit. “There weren’t many videos on her,” she says. “So I was curious. Because Chat will scout other sources, right? And I was like: ‘Please be specific. Please do your research.’ And I think it worked out well.”
AI has quietly aided some of the top players for some time. Most recently, the ATP has developed a platform called Tennis IQ that processes a massive amount of in-match data to define a player’s performance rating and shot quality. However, in a sport where athletes invest significant sums of money into employing coaches, many find the concept of directly seeking out generative AI platforms questionable at best.
Zizou Bergs, the top-ranked Belgian male, immediately shakes his head in disgust. “I heard of someone [scouting with ChatGPT], and he showed me the result of it,” he says. “It was like two or three years ago and I thought it was completely trash.”
Daniil Medvedev has found himself on ChatGPT with friends and his team members as they jokingly try to solve the most pressing question in men’s tennis: how to beat Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. He describes AI as a true armchair coach: “[It] says some things [about Sinner and Alcaraz] and I’m like: ‘OK great, how do I do it?’ Like: ‘OK, I see what you mean and it’s not bad things, but how do I go on court and do it?’”
A bored Coco Gauff once asked an AI platform about the best strategy for playing herself. “It didn’t say anything I didn’t already know,” she says. Then she comically rolls her eyes. “Newsflash: everybody plays me the same way – hit to my forehand and hope I double-fault.”
Many of these conversations about the use of AI in tennis shift quickly to a discussion on the use of AI in life outside the court. For Raducanu, there is no common theme to the types of questions with which she peppers ChatGPT: “It’s as random as my brain. One minute it’s history. One minute it’s art. One minute it’s some random fact. One minute it’s translations. So different questions.”
Players in general, however, are a far more cautious group. For now, Frances Tiafoe wants nothing to do with GenAI. “I don’t have ChatGPT. I don’t have the other one. I haven’t used much AI-generated stuff. I’m going against the grain. I’m still Google searching,” he says.
Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion, says her perspective towards ChatGPT has been coloured by a ridiculous tale she once heard. “Somebody came to some country, they thought they didn’t need a visa. Then they came and they were stuck in the airport because ChatGPT told them they didn’t need a visa even though they did need a visa. So no offending ChatGPT, but I still think you still have to check stuff yourself. Because it’s making us lazy. It’s not a good thing.”
Ostapenko does use ChatGPT, but only when she is too lazy to search for things herself. “I don’t have the plus version, because I don’t want to pay €20,” she says, laughing. “Not because I … obviously I can pay that. Just to push myself to do more than using ChatGPT to do stuff for me.”
Laziness is a common reason for some players’ disdain for AI, including Medvedev. “In general I don’t like AI,” he says. “Because even if I’m someone who can be a bit lazy sometimes, I do believe we need to do something sometimes. With AI it feels like so many people are going to just stay on the sofa and make their life through AI. I don’t think it is nice.”
For others, such as Naomi Osaka, the environmental cost of AI gives them pause. “I just heard it takes up a lot of water, and I like the water we have on Earth,” she says. Gauff concurs: “AI, I think it is cool, but also I don’t like what it does to the environment, so I don’t think I’m going to waste my clicks on that.
“The last time I had to use AI was for an emergency because we had to go to the hospital,” she says, smiling, before urgently clarifying her statement. “But not for me! It was for my friend.”
There are others who do consult it. Andreescu says she has taken a deep interest in the subject, listening to countless AI-related podcasts. “I’m trying not to become too obsessed with it because it can control our life,” she says. “You can ask him anything, talk about anything, won’t talk back. It’ll ask you questions and seem interested in what you’re talking about.”
Iga Swiatek grins sheepishly as she explains how she uses AI. “He’s writing emails for me sometimes,” she says. Elina Svitolina, meanwhile, bursts out laughing when explaining her last ChatGPT prompt. “What colours are suiting me the most,” she says, cackling. “It was pastel colours. Cold summer.”
Above all, uncertainty rules the locker room. Tiafoe has long been known for his carefree outlook on life, but on the subject of AI he is something of an old soul. “I just can’t get with it. I’m looking outside. In my backyard, there’s a golf course there and no one’s sitting in the seat [while it is] lawn mowing the whole course. I’m struggling, like, this can’t be reality,” he says, theatrically shaking his head. “At one point I will [embrace AI] but I don’t like so much information. It’s just crazy.”
