John McEnroe is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. With his aggressive attacking game, he enchanted audiences and opponents alike from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. But he is not only known as a former number one in the world and three-time Wimbledon champion, but above all for his temperament.
On January 21, 1990, he became the first player to be sent off for improper conduct at a Grand Slam tournament since Spaniard Willi Alvarez in 1963. That was in the fourth round of the Australian Open against Swede Mikael Pernfors. You only need one on YouTube John McEnroe
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crazy experiment
Youtuber downloads 10 terabytes of memory
McEnroe has stood in his own way more than once throughout his career. If you will, he was his own greatest opponent. The US sports channel ESPN+ and the beer brand Michelob are now actually letting the 63-year-old compete against himself or his younger self with the help of sophisticated technology including artificial intelligence. And not on a PC or a console, but on a real tennis court. Here you can see the teaser:
link to YouTube content
How can McEnroe play against himself in real life?
McEnroe was first scanned completely so that the avatar of his younger self can recreate movements, gestures and facial expressions. Here came the Unreal Engine, to be precise: the MetaHuman
-Technology, to use.
A team also analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage and fed 308 different punches from McEnroe into the system. Among other things, this consists of an AI algorithm that is trained on McEnroe’s playing style.
On the pitch it looks like this: One half of the tennis court is visible as normal. Here’s the real John McEnroe swinging his bat. The other half is shrouded in mist. On the one hand, it serves to represent the virtual McEnroe using holographic projection and, on the other hand, to hide the ball machine that is doing its work in the background. If the avatar swings his racket, it fires the balls as if they actually came from the racket.
Artificial intelligence
This is what famous cartoon characters would look like as real people
There are three versions of the artificial McEnroe from the years 1979, 1981 and 1984. Unfortunately, the complete video, which not only sheds light on the match but also on how it came about, is not available for free. You would need an ESPN+ subscription to do this. Nevertheless, it is a crazy experiment that we have not heard of in this form.
How do you like that? Have you ever heard of such an experiment? Feel free to write it in the comments!
