The future of tennis? We watched Tien upset Medvedev on the Australian Open’s AO Animated livestream to find out

When 19-year-old Learner Tien broke No. 5 seed Daniil Medvedev’s serve late in the fifth set of their second-round nailbiter, tennis fans were on the edge of their seats. But on some screens, there were no tennis players on Margaret Court Arena, or even fans in the stands. It was the pros' animated avatars doing all the action, thanks to Tennis Australia’s real-time animated feed, streaming live on its YouTube channel.

With the goal of expanding its audience and drawing younger viewers into the sport, the Australian Open has been recreating tennis broadcasts for its three biggest stadiums using player “skins” on digital avatars. And although the result looks like something out of the classic Nintendo Wii Sports’ tennis game, it’s produced entirely in-house by Tennis Australia.

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“The wonderful part of it is it’s the players’ actual movement. It’s the actual trajectory of the ball,” Machar Reid, Tennis Australia’s director of innovation, told The Associated Press. “We’re taking the real into the unreal. That’s part of the magic.”

It’s also a strategic way to get around the issue of not owning one's own live broadcasting rights. It’s common practice for sports leagues and events to sell these in lucrative deals across various global markets. (At Tennis Channel, for example, fans can tune into live ATP and WTA events, as well as Roland Garros and various exhibition events, for $9.99 a month.) While that normally means Tennis Australia wouldn’t be able to show any AO matches happening live on their YouTube channel, these digital skins create a fun loophole.

The experiment may sound crazy, and sometimes look a bit silly in practice, but fans are tuning in. The stream of Margaret Court Arena’s night session—which began with an animated Madison Keys taking down Gabriela Ruse in three sets and concluded with Medvedev and Tien’s down-to-the wire five-setter—garnered 70,000 views and counting an hour after its conclusion. Novak Djokovic’s opening match drew 95,000 views, while Joao Fonseca’s upset of Andrey Rublev, which drew a massive Brazilian audience, was so far the most-watched stream with 164,000 views.

Tuning into Medvedev and Tien, it’s clear that the technology is far from perfect. Only vaguely resembling the players, the avatars are frequently glitching: Sometimes Medvedev’s avatar would appear on Tien’s side of the court, and sometimes racquets disappeared from hands. The Russian’s digital character barely captured the player’s signature gesticulations, and facial expressions were flat.

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Still, the trajectory of the ball was accurate—and as a bonus, it showed up bright and clear on the TV screen—and it was easy to get sucked into the action thanks to the world feed commentary that helped fill in the gaps. An active live chat added to the experience, with an admin quickly breaking down the rules of a fifth-set tiebreaker for anyone who needed the reminder.

The Nintendo-style avatars only appear during the live tennis part of the broadcast. Fans get to watch the real-life players walk on, do the coin toss and pre-match warm-up as themselves, and once the umpire calls time on the start of the match the digital skins are added. As soon as “game, set and match” is called, the feed switches back and the avatars go away, so viewers can watch the handshake and post-match reactions in real time.

The feed stays live to include the post-match interview, where players’ personalities shine through: “I know I made it a lot harder than it could have been but, you know, whatever!” said a grinning Tien as he addressed the Melbourne crowd. In the comments, fans were raving: “That’s amazing. I'm a TIEN fan from today. I'm so excited that I can't sleep. It's 1 a.m. in Korea,” one user wrote.

Introduced by the Australian Open in 2024, the animated broadcasts may be new to tennis but follow the larger trend for sports organizations seeking to engage with a younger audience: Last year’s NFL Super Bowl featured a Spongebob Squarepants feed on Nickelodeon, while beloved Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck took part in the NBA's Christmas games.

Is this really the future of live sports broadcasts? Purists and longtime fans may cringe at the thought, but in today’s world of highly restricted TV rights and pricey subscription services, these feeds are already grabbing fans’ attention.

We’re taking the real into the unreal. That’s part of the magic. Machar Reid, Tennis Australia’s director of innovation

They can’t replace the actual product, but are a unique step in making the sport more accessible and shareable. Because there are no conflicts with AO rights holders, fans are invited to clip and share on-court on social media without worrying about copyright strikes—on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, we’ve already seen the digital recreation of Medvedev smashing the net camera almost as much as the actual footage of it happening.

Players are leaning into the experiment too, with reactions ranging from amused to curious as they learn of the digital match footage and highlights.

“I had no idea that something like that exists, so for me, it was quite funny to see that,” Jiri Lehecka told the Associated Press. “Maybe I will see myself as a game character one day. We will see.”