How LTA Performance Analysts support the British players at the top of the game
• 3 MINUTE READ
In elite level sport, often the difference between winning and losing can be the finest of margins.
That’s where performance analysis comes in – helping players to get marginally gains not only in their own games but also against their opponents.
We spoke to LTA Senior Performance Analyst Toby West about his role and how he’s supporting the top British tennis stars in the women’s game.
Describe what you do, who you’re currently working with and how regularly you work with the players? What do you do ahead of Wimbledon?
I’m a Senior Performance Analyst at the LTA, specifically leading the support for the Women’s team. My core responsibility is to provide players and coaches with data-driven insights to optimise match strategy and monitor player-specific performance trends over time.
I work with a range of players from the top elite female British players, through to some of the younger players on our performance programmes.
As a department, we work week-in, week-out, delivering our support remotely as the players and coaches travel from one tournament to another, around the world. Ahead of Wimbledon, we have the opportunity to deliver our support in person, on the ground at the tournaments.
I work closely with players and coaches, using video and statistics to give tactical insight for upcoming matches, enhancing feedback, supporting evidence based coaching and underpinning decision making with facts. All of this is to help to make clear, confident and consistent decisions in order to gain a competitive advantage for our British Players.
How crucial is your work to the modern game and getting a British player to number one?
Tennis at the elite level is now heavily data-driven, margins between victory and defeat are razor-thin, and the right insights can make a significant impact to player rankings.
The work we do, helps facilitate the coaches to delve deeper into how to prepare for the upcoming matches, giving them reassurance for a particular gameplan, or offering them an enhanced level of insight attainable through data analysis.
On average, players who win the match, only win between 50-55% of points, therefore the marginal gains players may obtain through our support can often be the difference between a win and a loss. Performance analysis also enables us to monitor a player’s development over time in a structured, objective way, comparing to the trends of the game for the top players on tour.
The data we capture can help to build an individualised player development plan, focussing on tactical insights, technical markers, as well as physical and psychological readiness. By tracking these across years, we can spot individual strengths and areas for development, ensuring training interventions are personalised and periodised effectively.
How has the latest technology enabled you to do your job?
Ball tracking data is a fast growing, ever evolving element of our role as performance analysts.
The technology can offer real-time, accurate tracking of ball trajectories, player movements, and shot placements, providing precise data on serve speeds, spin rates, court coverage, and bounce/contact coordinates.
The data we obtain can be used to explore bespoke projects, assessing both player development and performance trends, but also to help prepare for upcoming matches.
What are the challenges you face in the role?
One of the most common challenges we face in our role is down to the nature of tennis, that being the reactive nature to schedules and draws.
A tournament draw is often only released a day or two before the first matches, this tight timeline significantly compresses our preparation window and demands rapid analysis and decision-making to support players effectively.
To ensure we provide on time, on point analysis, we utilise purpose built analytical software, coordinate necessary data collection efficiently and use pre-built reporting workflows that allow us to turn around detailed opponent scouting reports within hours of the draw announcement.
We’ll also ensure we stay ahead of the game, preparing for potential next round opponents, at least a round ahead, so as soon as our player progresses, information on their next opponent will be at hand immediately.
What’s the stat most players want to know?
The stat players most often want to know is: “Where does my opponent serve on big points?”. As we know, the serve is the one shot a player has complete control over, and they use it to setup the point.
Understanding opponents’ tendencies with serve direction can give a player an idea of where to setup, and what to expect from one opponent to the next, but what a lot of players really value, is how their opponents behave under pressure, such as at 30-30, break point, or in tie-breaks. Many players have predictable tendencies when the stakes are high, even if their patterns are varied earlier in games.
What’s your number one tip?
My number one tip is to prioritise clarity over quantity, especially with coaches and players new to analysis, delivering three key stats that change behaviour or inform the team, rather than overloading them with information.
When presenting statistical information to players and coaches, the goal isn't to show everything we know, it's to highlight key information that will help them win more points, matches, or improve a specific aspect of their game. Sometimes less is more, the last thing we want to do is confuse or complicate the situation. As players and coaches start to engage more, and become well versed in interpreting and understanding data, we can start to delve into a little more detail, beyond the ‘three key stats’.
