 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Norr. Today we're talking about the rise of tennis eSports and its road to the Olympics. My guest is Dr. Gregory Gettinger, the CEO and founder of VR Motion Learning. He's joining us from Vienna, Austria. Welcome, Gregory. Thank you, it's a nice being on your show again. All right, you were here last about a year and a half ago, and eSports tennis was in beta testing, okay? So what's been happening since then? Yeah, it was, it went really fast actually. I think we had the show in April, in July last year we went on the app lab of the Oculus and it was quite a long time where we had to test and find out and fine tune. And then June 1st this year, we got on the Oculus store and that was like a boom, because just two weeks later, we did the Tennis Canada VR Tournament together with Tennis Canada. Two weeks later, we went to Mongolia to the Eastern, to the Asian Games where we got Olympic. And two weeks later, we have been at the US Open together with Wilson and now we're sitting here and we are really discussing the next events of the ATP Vienna in the Aster Open in October and it goes on like that. So it's unbelievable actually. All right, let's show the first video. Yes, I said, well, let's digitalize tennis. You can in the virtual world play against Roger Federer. But what is really different here compared to any kind of VR tennis game is that you do all the authentic moves and technique as you would do on the real court in a metaverse. When creating the simulation, we realized that the state of the art physics engines and existing scientific research couldn't deliver the precision and accuracy we needed. The main challenge in this project is to create a collision model that is capable of real-time predictions of ball velocity and ball spin after ground and racket impact. VR tennis can be closer to the definition of sports and to the Olympic movement. Great. At the end, it felt like real tennis. My son is still back there. He's totally hooked already. So nice. It was amazing. I loved it so much. I just can't talk about it. It's so good. So Gregory, is tennis e-sports the perfect e-sports game for the Olympics? That's a good question. Yes and no. I would say it's perfect because you really have to do the right motion and the right technique so you don't sit on your computer and push any buttons and shoot any aliens. You really have to stand up and play real tennis. With being in a metaverse. So I think from that point of view, I think it's a great virtual sport. If the Olympics want to go that way or not, it's a different question because the Olympics seriously had in Singapore in June was a little bit mixed. They had dancing. They had chess. They had motor cars. So I'm not quite sure now. The Olympic Committee actually just yesterday decided on a new committee for the Olympic series. And we'll see what direction they will take. So what are the chances that tennis e-sports will be at Paris 2024 or LA 2028? There's a good chance. It's not going to be on the real Olympics because they have basically no space and no time to put in the virtual sports. But the Olympic series is coming right after the Paralympics and that's on the program. So it's scheduled for November 23 in Paris and then in November 28 in Los Angeles. And I would say we have good chances. Yes, I hope we're going to be there. All right, so I have tickets to soccer, basketball, gymnastics, and boxing for Paris 2024. But unfortunately, that's in July. So I'll have to take another trip over there for e-sports tennis. So what about e-sports tennis? I mean, there was discussion about it in the video. What do you think makes it ideal for the Olympic brand? I think it's a fantastic thing because now you don't have to travel anymore to compete. So people around the world don't have to meet in one place and spend all the travelling costs and time to play against each other. And the second point is that a far bigger audience and player base can play against each other and meet in the metaverse. So a third portion is you're getting much younger and audience, which maybe is a little bit bored from the traditional sports. Just take tennis. You're playing US Open right now and a game takes like three, four hours. Now, a 13, 14-year-old boy does not really want to watch three or four hours until he finds out who's winning. In tennis e-sports, it takes two or three minutes and you win the tie break. And if it's best of three, within 20 minutes you have the matches is one. So it's much faster, much more attractive, much more engaging. You can stream it on YouTube. You can show it to your friends. You can participate online. You can send your comments. So it fits actually the century we're living in. And the old Olympics is a little bit old fashioned. Yeah, and I see it as a good marrying between the old style of Olympics and kind of the new, the future that we're going into. Because it doesn't have the violence that they're concerned about, but it also has that physical activity and it has that traditional sporting aspect. What do you think about that? You're right with number one and number two and you have not mentioned number three. That's the learning aspect. It's the educational part. With tennis e-sports, you're forced to do the right moves. So you're basically learning tennis if you have not played so far or you're improving your technique. And we are actually driving your forehand to an optimal forehand, which you can then use on the real court too. So you're learning a sport virtually and it's more efficient and it's more effective than playing on the real court. So I have a burning question for you, Gregory. That is, has your game improved since I last talked to you by using tennis e-sports? Oh yes, tons, tons. It improved in the ball physics. It improved in the single matching experience in the multiplayer. We've brought in many features and to be honest, we are still not there. It's gonna take another three, four, five years until we have the product which we really want to have. It's a long-term project. It's not something which turns around within six months. It has a lot of tech involved here, a lot of investment and a lot of learning because we are entering new territory. Nobody's doing what we're doing. So yeah, it's a long way to go but it's fun because it's bringing so much success and fun. So it's my understanding that when pro football players are not playing or practicing their game, their sport that they play Madden or other related games, do pro tennis players or essentially collegiate tennis players or serious tennis players play tennis e-sports on their off time? I'm not aware that the top 100 are playing but we do have lots of tennis players which are starting around ranking 300 to 700. And those are the tennis players who cannot afford to play all the tournaments because the traveling costs are so intense. And then they play tennis e-sports and you still can make prize money and you can play it from home. So that's very convenient and environmental friendly too. All right, so one thing that I have that we talked about last time was the fact that tennis e-sports allows you to play with people in distant places or people that you would normally not get to play against and that the an advantage is that you can play inside when it's really hot outside or it's cold outside. So now that pickleball is so popular and pickleball is actually taking over some tennis courts is there a further advantage to tennis e-sports to allow people who don't wanna play pickleball to actually still participate in tennis but do it virtually? Yes, well, I have nothing against pickleball. In Europe, paddle tennis is quite popular in its growing. Tennis is still the classic game where everyone wants to play. I know about the competition between pickleball and tennis that I'm aware of that. We like to stay out of that because we wanna be something like add-on. If you don't have two hours of time to drive to the tennis club and find a partner and book a court and go back and forth and you just wanna play three, five minutes, a quick tennis game for the fun of it or training, it's perfect. You just put your headset on, you push one button and you are on a virtual court and you can play tennis from home. So we're not really competing with pickleball or tennis. It's something which is in addition. Or another example, your backhand is not that well, not going that good and you wanna train your backhand so you make your slices and you exercise a day by day and you get better and better. And on the virtual court, you see with every stroke, what kind of spin you give to the ball, what is your velocity, you see your stats, how you're doing, you don't get it on real court. The coach cannot tell you, hey, you have a velocity of 123 miles with each stroke or your spin is 1500 RPM, but in virtual tennis, you have that and you can see it over time how it's improving or not. So we are a different animal. So the learning function is so important, correct? Yes, but the learning function is something which comes with the game. So we wanna have fun entertaining, entertainment and the learning just comes on the side basically. Okay, so the entertainment piece, are there, is this being streamed? Are there fans who are watching Tennessee sports? We had our very first stream of the finals of the tennis Canada VR tournament. So what happened was that, we had a cooperation with Tennis Canada and their tournament, the National Bank Open was in Montreal and Toronto at the same time. In Toronto, there was the ATP in Montreal, the WTA and they wanted to host the VR tournament with us. So we had a qualification of six weeks on playoffs and the best two were flown into Toronto and Canada, Toronto and Montreal. And the interesting thing is, and I'm coming back to your question of the streaming, the interesting thing is that they played simultaneously between Toronto and Montreal and we streamed that match on YouTube live. So that was the very first time we have done it. If you wanna show that video, there's a video about this final, maybe just one minute, maybe wanna show it to the audience. Serving from the North End, Razor. All right, so what did we just watch? Well, you just watched the finals between Montreal and Toronto. And it was amazing because one player was in Montreal, one player was in Toronto. They played simultaneously a virtual tennis match and this tennis match was broadcasted on the event of the National Bank Open. Everyone could watch there and it was live streamed on YouTube. So actually that anyone who had a mobile or has a PC could watch the game the same time. That was a world premiere, basically of a virtual tennis final. You know, that's exciting because just think about people who can't afford to travel to distant locales to play tennis. And it's a great opportunity and a great equalizer and it allows for some exciting pairings. What are your thoughts on that? Yes, and it's not only gender neutral, it's not only age neutral. The number seven of the tournament was Stefan who was handicapped and he played with us like in real life with anyone else but he was in the virtual game, he's not handicapped. And he had so much fun playing the whole esport tennis community, because he was in the family, there was no handicap for him. So that's really nice to see that, we are one family and there's no discrimination whatsoever. So that's exciting that you can bring disabled athletes into this game and they can be equal to others. And also you mentioned gender neutrality. So do you have any, when people play tennis esports, are there any divisions based on gender or age or anything? No, nothing at all. In the future, we will make only a difference on quality of game on the ranking system so that the beginners don't play against the pros because that's a little bit unfair. But for the start, everyone plays against anyone. And you don't even know if it's a girl or a man unless you chat with a person but you can decide yourself if you wanna chat or not. And if you wanna chat, you will find out who your opponent is and you have a very friendly conversation and fun on doing that. But yes, everyone plays, everyone plays. All right, so are there any esports tennis leagues? Yes, so we have established a tennis esports tour and we already have a ranking. So we have around about 2,000 players already. I'm ranked in the tennis esports tour. One of those was this Tennis Canada VR Tournament. Another one was the Wilson Championships which we had finals at the US Open. And there's a calendar of events for the tournaments and everyone who participates in the tournaments and in the weekly challenges and in our games basically earns points and gets into the ranking of the Tennis Esports Tour. What about sponsorship? Has this attracted sponsors? Yes, so the Tennis Canada VR Tournament was sponsored by Motorola Razor and there was price money of $15,000. So people were not only flown in into the country and got free hotels and Acclimate Day, whatsoever. They also got cash prices. The same happened with New York. So Wilson sponsored the second tournament and the next tournament in Vienna is again sponsored by the Aster Open and by the Austrian Tennis Federation. So it's very attractive for sponsors. You have a good audience. You have a young audience. It has no violence in the game. You learn something. It's fun and entertaining. So sponsors like that. Sure. And I would think that there's kind of a nice bridge between generations because you have the older people who may play traditional tennis and younger people who may be interested in the Tennis Esports. Have you seen that? Yes, absolutely. So I play almost every day myself and I play kids, 10 years old and sometimes even seven or eight years old and I play 80 year old people too. So you have the full age distribution. And in terms of skill, being a tennis player does that make it more likely you're gonna be better at this? Yes. Okay. Or is there cross other sports that may mean that someone might be better? Well, if you know how to play tennis, you know, because you're playing real tennis just on a virtual court. It has the same technique, the same everything. So if you know how to play tennis, you do have a huge advantage. But you can learn it. You can learn it and you learn it faster in the virtual court than on the real court. So you can catch up and anyone who's sports interested is able to play balls and understand bouncing balls and the timing of strokes and how that works has advantage. Yes. So last time I talked with you, the hardware that you were using was Oculus. Has that changed at all? No, no, we are on the Oculus Quest 2. And as you probably know, the Quest 3 is coming out quite soon. So we're gonna be on the Quest 3.2 and that's the most popular headset. And we are open to all hardware, but the MetaQuest is the number one hardware right now. Yeah, and I do have MetaQuest 2, I think. So I think I'll have to start playing. So what, let's take a look at your website so people know how to find you. So I believe this is your website, tennis-esports.com. So what can people find here? Here you can find how you find us basically on the Oculus Store and what you need to have, what you need to have, which is just a headset, wifi and space, basically. But you also find all the rankings, all the leaderboards to find yourself, where are you on different leaderboards? And you see the event calendar. So you see when it's the next tournament, I'm coming and you can join those events. So that's the main purpose of this site. Terrific. And so what do you think the future of tennis-esports is? It will be a combination of training, of single match experience, like a career mode and certainly multiplayer, that you can play other people. I think that's gonna be the triangle. And I'm sure it's gonna be Olympic and I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of other tournaments and I'm sure we're gonna have a huge tennis-esports tour, a calendar where everything goes. And one day we will have the international VR Tennis Federation for sure. Well, that's super exciting. I'm hoping that I can actually see it in Paris 2024, LA 2028 and beyond. Thank you so much, Gregory. I really appreciate you being my guest. Well, thank you for having me. All right, so thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Make sure to tune in in two weeks. My guest will be Elliot Oraskovic of the US Esports Association. See you then.