Data analytics has been around a long time in sport. Perhaps the best known in example of its use is from 2002, when the Oakland Athletics baseball team used statistical analysis to choose their squad, rather than the wisdom of coaches and scouts, and their favoured metrics. Tennis has also seen this revolution. “Data blew up our sport,” says tennis strategist and coach Craig O’Shannessy. Coaches now have artificial intelligence (AI), where sophisticated software is fed, or trained, with unimaginable amounts of data. The resulting AI can spot patterns that a human would never be able to see. Is Artificial intelligence creating a world of learned but Jobless human beings?

