FOR TENNIS fans, new technology enhances the Wimbledon experience for those who cannot make it to Centre Court.

IBM's Slamtracker offers tennis fans a new way to keep track of events at London's SW19. The application, which can be accessed through the Wimbledon.org website, provides a wide variety of live information on events in the championships.

"It takes just seconds for the information to go from courtside to the scoreboard," says Elizabeth Hammer, project manager of Wimbledon.org.

Slamtracker provides fans with updates on scores across the courts at the tournament. More detailed live information on specific matches and players can also be accessed through the application. The aim is not just to make it easier for people to keep track of the tennis while in the office. The developers want to improve the experience for all fans.

"People already understand and appreciate the scoreboard. We wanted them to understand the tournament more," says Hammer.

To this end, the scoreboard in Slamtracker is tied to the draw, showing the impact of each game on the tournament.

Fans can follow maps of the grounds to see where there are games under way and delve into stats for matches at specific courts

The application can be personalised, enabling users to follow their favourite players through the draw and work out their potential route to the final.

Personalisation has been the key focus of the IT team at Wimbledon this year. Having received 8.6 million hits last year, the developers are looking to maximise the value of visitors. The front page of the tournament's website has a tool allowing users to select their five favourite players.

Once these players have been selected, the homepage of Wimbledon.org will be adjusted to show news and statistics relating to these players. Fans can watch live or recorded matches of their heroes with one click through this service.

The communication is two-way as Wimbledon strives to be more interactive in 2008. Despite her early exit from the tournament, Ana Ivanovic has received thousands of marriage proposals from fans on the Wimbledon.org homepage.

French Open champion Rafael Nadal has been the source of much interest from supporters on the site, indicating that many online tennis junkies at least hope for a changing of the guard this year.

The official blog of the championships is tied to comments made by fans on the homepage, though not too much to the marriage proposals. "We are using it to field questions from fans," says Hammer.

Some of these questions are delivered from a virtual environment. Virtual world SecondLife offers fans a new way to experience games away from the courts. "Here we are able to have people immersed in the content and experience it with one another," says Ian Hughes, consulting IT specialist with IBM.

Data from the Hawkeye ball monitoring system is used to enable fans to watch real matches as they happen in this virtual environment.

Despite all these new developments, IBM has actually been able to reduce some of the expenses on IT at Wimbledon this year. By using green technology, the cost of power consumption for the entire Wimbledon.org operation have dropped by 23 per cent compared with 2007.

On top of the web services, IBM is providing the entire statistical operation at the tournament. Dedicated staff with knowledge of the sport constantly update the scoreboard and statistical database. The new video scoreboards on Centre Court and Court One show information gathered by these statisticians to keep the crowd up to date on what is happening elsewhere.

The data on graphics used by the BBC in its broadcasts from SW19 is provided from this same database.

Two tennis players, who have past experience at county level of the game, are assigned to monitor the coverage and provide relevant information. "The speed of the information amazes the commentators at times," says John Kent, programme manager of worldwide sponsorship and marketing with IBM.

"Tim Henman is commentating for the first time this year and he has been surprised a few times by our ability to deliver statistics as soon as he mentions something on air," says Kent.

Even the players are benefiting from this tech-savvy approach the organisers of Wimbledon have taken in 2008. Players receive a DVD of games 20 minutes after their match is completed. These DVDs integrate tactical information with a recording of the games, so Roger Federer can work out that one area in which he was imperfect moments after finishing a match.

This wide range of technological developments is aimed at improving the Wimbledon experience for all the stakeholders in the championships. "From the [All England] club's perspective, these are all things that make people happy," says Kent.

The ability to use these new functions will continue beyond the end of the tournament on Sunday. Slamtracker is now being used at all Grand Slam tournaments and can next be accessed during the US Open later this summer.