IBM bets on Nadal with Wimbledon analytics application

IBM is to release a predictive analytics application in time for Wimbledon that could give users an idea of which players will win the tournament.

PointStream will be officially revealed next week, and will be available for all court matches shown on Wimbledon.com.

IBM Global Process Services president Andrew Spencer gave a preview of the application at a press event on Wednesday held to mark IBM's centenary.

Spencer said that, based on PointStream's analytics, Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal is a safer bet than Switzerland's Roger Federer to win the men's final.

The application uses real-time data to assess matches in progress and then serves up scores and statistics on the players in a dashboard.

Prior to each match, the application displays 'keys to the match' that provide analysis of both players with head-to-head statistics based on historic data. The analysis will also cover 'keys to winning' points for each player.

IBM produced PointStream by meshing five years' worth of Grand Slam Tournament data, and using IBM SPSS analytics software to mine the data and display the three key elements of each player's game.