A new ITF ruling allows for technology to record data during a match, although outputting data is still prohibited. Challenger includes a feature that blocks instant feedback, only letting the user sync and view post-match.

We understand the hassle of finding a lost dampener. Challenger isn’t glued to your racket – but it may as well be. It won’t come off until you want it to.

No hardware will ever replace the experience and intuition of a human coach. We developed Challenger not to replace a teacher, but to enhance the teaching experience. We want to provide more data for analysis — with or without a coach — to illuminate technique in a way that hasn’t been accessible to most players - until now. We love tennis; it's really given us so much. We hope that Challenger and products like it can not only help us grow as players, but also help the game of tennis grow so that it can be cherished by future generations. We want this technology to help coaches teach rather than teach them how to coach.

We thought long and hard about the placement of Challenger and believe that the benefits of having the device on your strings will outweigh the downsides of dampening for those who don’t prefer it. That being said we are evaluating the use of different materials that will allow players to enhance or reduce the dampening effect.

Challenger can be attached to — or removed from — any strung racket in seconds. We designed it this way to encourage transferability and sharing.

One of our biggest challenges is keeping the size and weight of Challenger to a minimum. As we’re selecting optimal materials, we are not yet certain of its final weight. But we can tell you that our goal is to keep its weight between that of 2 and 3 dampeners. While any additional mass may affect swing, Challenger is placed toward the middle of the racket for minimal effect on racket balance.

The main metrics will work with any racket. An app will allow more experienced players to add information about their equipment, string type, and string tension to collect more accurate data. As we continue to test more racket/string/tension combinations, we’ll be able to provide even more data to suit the needs of every player. We’ll do our best to use that input data to calibrate the device for more accurate results. You can also change rackets on the fly using the app to ensure you always have the best data available.

Each player profile will be able to log racket and string specifications. This is not required but may produce better results. If no data is input, default settings will apply. When players switch rackets, they have the option to either change their racket/string settings or switch profiles.

Yes! We believe that opening up Challenger as a platform will allow people to showcase their creativity and develop innovative new data applications.

The data, first and foremost, will be given in real units like MPH and KPH. In addition to the instant data on the device screen, a player or coach can view each metric separately or combined with one or more other metrics. For example, would you like to know where on your strings you hit most of your backhand slices? Challenger has the answer.

Since we’re using accelerometer and gyroscope data, it is not possible to directly measure ball speed. However, a large body of research considers methods of extrapolating ball speed from racket data. Although ball speed will not be available when Shot Stats Challenger launches, we will continue to research and refine these methods. If they prove useful, we will release an update to enable this functionality for everyone using Challenger.