Even before the crowd begins to applaud, in the split seconds following the point, two men seated before specialised paperback-sized keypads punch in a sequence of keys. One watches the match above the court. The other, his back-up, sits down in the bowels of a computer room at Wimbledon, where he gazes at a small monitor on which the miniature players battle through the set.
The two are junior masters-level tennis players trained by IBM to enter point by point match information on the keypads. These have keys that allow the men to enter any combination of characteristics for how a point was won or lost. IBM figures it's easier to train expert tennis players to use the keypads, than to train their technicians in the finer points of lawn tennis.
As the point registers in the heads of the fans, already an online scoreboard is showing details that include this point in real-time match data. If you, in Boston or Bermuda, are on www.wimbledon.org, you can see the speed of the serve, the percentage of first serves Lleyton Hewitt has got in, the percentage of second serves, service games won and lost, total points won and more, all calculated almost instantaneously.
"Wimbledon is a very small business 50 weeks of the year, and a very large business two weeks a year," says Mr Mark McMurrugh, IBM's Wimbledon project director. He oversees a small, round-the-year team based at the famous lawn tennis club - but for two summer weeks, watches that team grow to 180 people that will help record 350,000 tennis strokes and create 850 facts per match.
They will also set up the radar system that clocks those sizzling Serena Williams serves, install 350 computer systems and 150 PDAs (personal digital assistants) or handheld computers for use during the event, create all the television score and fact graphics you see on screen during 5,000 hours of matches watched by 1.8 billion fans, and run the wimbledon.org website, which saw 4.2 million unique visitors last year in the two weeks of the tournament.
"We're here to support a global, on-demand business," says Mr McMurrugh, citing the current IBM buzzwords. He is straightforward about why IBM, the lone designated IT supplier for Wimbledon, is here: "For IBM, it's a great showcase." So the company uses Wimbledon to "trial" pilot projects such as wireless access to its online virtual scoreboard using a PDA, or a set-up whereby the press photographers at the two main courts can upload their digital images seconds after they are taken, where they go to a central website for downloading by publications.
IBM also used Wimbledon to "inch in" the use of Linux, the operating system now running the vast wimbledon.org website. Initially trialled in 1999, Linux ran on only a couple of servers, and IBM kept non-essential, backed- up data on those servers so that if it all went pear-shaped, the high-profile website and other operations would not suffer.
Today's high-tech Wimbledon - deliberately kept subtle and low key to conform with the club's traditional formality and lack of on-grounds advertising - is a far cry from 1990, when IBM first linked up with the club.
Fifteen years ago, 30 people arrived a mere two weeks before the event with 20 so-called "luggable" PCs (meaning you didn't need a trolley to shift them around). The team was focused mainly on producing television graphics, and over two weeks, presented the world with a grand total of 10 graphics for the six show courts.
"One laptop here today has more computing power than all those PCs in 1990," noted Mr McMurrugh. And instead of two weeks, it takes 10 months to plan, build and implement the computer systems needed for Wimbledon's brief flurry of activity.
The following year the company set up the radar for measuring serve speed - an offering which remains a favourite with viewers. A fledgling website launched in 1995, it was mostly brochure-style information updated sporadically with no real interactive elements. Today, 80 match analysers - the masters tennis players at courtside and in the computer room - use specialised software and keypads for instantly recording matches. The keypads can enter over 80 different combinations of information for each point.
"The BBC and all the broadcasters rely on their input, because it drives the score seen on the TV," says Mr McMurrugh.
Immediately following each show court match, a special match fact book is assembled for the two players along with an unedited video, and placed in their lockers in time for them to read after their post-match shower. For matches in the smaller courts, data are recorded on a PDA which is synchronised to the network afterwards. Such data can be quite important because although they aren't available real-time, the data are sometimes needed later if one of those players inches into the finals matches.
IBM supplies similar technology at the Grand Slam competitions plus the various tennis Opens.
You can't beat Wimbledon tickets either as a sign of corporate hospitality, and IBM makes extensive use of its two hospitality suites, and access to tickets, to bring in worldwide clients it is wooing or those it would like to thank for a continuing relationship, says Mr McMurrugh.
He is speaking in a room overlooking a wedge of Henman Hill and the side of Number One Court. Below, a number of matches have begun on the many side courts. Soft applause gently rises in the summer morning air.
"We use them to say thanks," he says, grinning. "Or to encourage them to sign on the dotted line with us."
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