MELBOURNE, Australia — Maybe attending sports events in person is too been-there, done-that in the modern age. So, apparently, is watching the actual action on a TV, laptop or phone. The Australian Open is getting in on the newest trend in the sports world by re-creating tennis matches in video-game form.
The year's first Grand Slam tournament, which runs through Jan. 26, is streaming real-time animated feeds on its YouTube channel that mimic what's happening in the three main stadiums.
Players are represented by characters that look like something out of a Wii game — not exactly perfect portrayals of Coco Gauff or Novak Djokovic, perhaps, but the graphics do try to show the correct outfit colors or hats and bandanas the athletes are wearing and reflect what is happening in the matches, with about a one-point delay.
''Sometimes I think it's a very accurate (depiction) of the actual player that's playing. So it's weird. It's funny and weird,'' said 2021 U.S. Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who will face Gauff in the third round Friday. ''I did not see myself just yet. Maybe I will. Now I'm curious, because I've seen different players ... and I think I want to watch myself, too.''
Tennis Australia created its own ''skins'' to represent players, chair umpires and ball persons.
''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.''
Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam champion at age 21, called it ''a good alternative.''
Like many players preparing for future opponents, Fernandez often scours YouTube to try to find footage of past matches to aid with scouting. That, Fernandez said with a chuckle, is how she accidentally discovered the cartoonish replays from Melbourne Park that have been creating a buzz among the competitors.
