On the 18th in Chaoyang District's Wenyuhe (温榆河) Park, the largest sports park in Beijing, two players kept a rally going with crisp hits on a blue tennis court that contrasted with the blazing sun. Following guidance from staff on site, scanning the QR code displayed on a large monitor next to the court opened a mobile app screen. Tapping the "join match" button brought a live match video to the phone. 4K high-definition cameras installed at both ends of the court were broadcasting the match in real time.
The match went beyond a simple live relay to real-time data analysis. Video clips were generated for each rally, allowing rewinds during play, and ball data were compiled and provided, including the landing point (in/out), forehand–backhand ratio, shot location, and ball trajectory. After each set, a video was created that visualized ball trajectory, speed, shot type, distance covered, and more as special effects. Alibaba's own AI model "Tongyi Qianwen (通义千问)" is applied to this video to provide user-tailored training advice.
The system was developed and is operated by "Orange Lion Sports," a sports technology company that Alibaba founded in 2015. The company says it built a "smart tennis court" model by integrating match video storage, data analysis, and reservation/operations into one. According to the company, within two years of launch the product has been installed at more than 200 tennis courts across China and is being used at International Tennis Federation (ITF) MT700 tournaments held in Beijing. An English-language service will begin in June.
Gong Deyu (龚德彧), chief executive officer (CEO) of Orange Lion Sports, said, "Now even amateur club players can use data analysis services that used to be possible only in professional matches," adding, "It is evolving beyond a simple relay into a smart venue operations platform."
China, which is rapidly building AI technological competitiveness, is expanding AI adoption across the sports industry as well. Chinese corporations are challenging the sports review market dominated by Britain's Hawk-Eye, broadening AI applications from match officiating in soccer, tennis, and table tennis to player training analysis and smart venue operations. Observers say the government's "AI Plus (+)" strategy is pushing into sports on the ground, beyond manufacturing and the internet industry.
At an indoor sports experience space in Chaoyang District visited the same afternoon, placing balls on a billiards table was immediately recognized by a ceiling-mounted camera. An AI voice on a large wall-mounted screen said "starting the game" and guided the ball layout, and once play began, the fast-moving ball trajectories and scores were recorded on the screen in real time. How many shots dropped into which pocket and whether there were fouls were displayed without error. The AI automatically ruled on scores and delivered running commentary. It felt like an online game screen brought into real life.
A staff member on site said, "Previously, people recorded by hand or relied on simple sensors, but now vision AI tracks all ball movements and positions," adding, "Beyond simply running a match, it can analyze user data and even assist with training."
The subsequent table tennis demonstration was even more precise. Going beyond AI-run match management, cameras installed on both sides of the table tracked in real time the ball's speed and trajectory, bounce height, and spin direction to provide data. Every ball position in each rally was recorded, and when the match ended, the screen visualized data showing which direction the user's serves tended to go and on which courses errors were frequent.
The technology was developed by Rigour (瑞盖·Rigour) in Beijing. Rigour has independently developed a "Chinese version of Hawk-Eye" system based on AI vision technology and now provides electronic line calls, video assistant referee (VAR), training assistance and evaluation, and enhanced broadcasting for sports ranging from soccer, volleyball, tennis, and table tennis to winter events. It is broadening its use from amateur training in ordinary gyms to professional match operations.
In particular, the core is real-time tracking of ball and player movement through multi-camera and image recognition algorithms. Rigour's technology can precisely track a table tennis ball's trajectory to within 0.1 mm. The company described this as world-class precision. Human movement is tracked down to the millimeter by capturing body features such as skeleton, joints, limb lengths, and skeletal positions, as well as uniform colors and jersey numbers. It also collects and analyzes data including ball speed, revolutions, topspin/backspin, spin quality, net clearance height, and player reaction time.
CEO Pan Yu (潘宇) said, "This system is being used in actual training by China's national team," adding, "Overseas still relies heavily on apprenticeship-style training, while China is pursuing much faster training by leveraging such AI systems."
Government policy lies behind the rapid spread of AI use in China's sports industry. Under the "AI Plus (+)" strategy, the Chinese government is expanding AI commercialization across manufacturing and services, and in the government work report at the Two Sessions (两会)—the National People's Congress of China and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference—in March, expanding AI industry applications was presented as a key task. Particularly as technological competition with the United States intensifies, Chinese corporations are standing out in their push to secure "homegrown technology" in sports. While Britain's Hawk-Eye system has effectively become the standard in the global sports review market, Chinese corporations are moving to build their own ecosystems and expand the market by leveraging image recognition technology, algorithms, and multi-camera tracking.
At the same time, they are lowering the price barrier of AI review and analysis systems, which had been limited by high build-out costs, and accelerating broader adoption. In fact, Orange Lion Sports' "Smartshot" AI video system, developed under Alibaba, optimized algorithms and improved the expense structure to cut the expense of a Hawk-Eye-level video analysis system to between one-tenth and as low as one-hundredth of conventional levels.
Rigour likewise secured product price competitiveness in AI review for soccer matches by sharply reducing server expense through its own video encoding algorithm. CEO Pan said, "Other private algorithms require owning high-performance, high-priced servers to process signals from dozens of cameras, but thanks to our own algorithm, we can handle them with relatively lower-performance, lower-priced servers," adding, "Even so, we scored 99.8 in the FIFA image quality assessment for review systems. That allowed us to greatly reduce server expense and product prices."