Opening up tennis

As the LTA continues to strengthen and grow its fan base, the experience players get through online services is as important as the welcome they get in person at clubs and courts.

We’re using tech to personalise the digital experience of LTA users, so the information they receive is consistent, relevant, and useful to them. This connected user experience ensures that people are targeted with the right information, whichever digital ‘touchpoint’ they are interacting with, whether that’s email, app, or web.

Players and fans will only be told about the events, stats, and stories they want to see. In turn, this will help the LTA track and refine the experience, improving things for future users. By giving people a bespoke experience, we’ll make everyone feel welcome.

Volunteers have always been a vital part of the LTA. We’re helping support their amazing work with a bespoke digital portal to help them upskill.

Sessions run by the LTA’s Park Activators are often low cost or free to attend, making them a vital part of the LTA’s mission to open up tennis to new communities.

Our Park Activators portal will provide session leaders with access to online training and resources that will help them improve the quality of their sessions, with the latest tips and techniques from the pros. The portal will also let them keep track of their mandatory courses, such as safeguarding training, ensuring that park courts remain a safe and fun space for everyone.

A key part of our ‘tennis opened up’ strategy with the LTA is to help create a new generation of leaders for the organisation. The Tennis Leaders programme will see 16-18 year olds working with Deloitte consultants and local clubs to help shape the future of tennis.

‘Tennis Leaders’ sees Deloitte and the LTA pooling expertise at a national and local level to help upskill teenagers in how to run a sports club. Along the way, the Leaders will gain interpersonal skills, communication techniques and a huge chunk of experience to take forward into their careers, potentially within the LTA itself. In return, Deloitte consultants and the LTA will get first-hand advice from young people on how digital innovation can make tennis more attractive to the next generation.

The LTA Tennis Foundation is the new tennis charity that partners with brilliant people and organisations to improve lives through tennis. With a new centralised giving platform, we’re helping streamline the process.

Keeping donations in one place, not only makes life easier for people wishing to donate but also gives the Foundation valuable insight into who’s donating. This helps them plan initiatives, maintain high standards of data and compliance. There’s benefits for the people donating too.

The new platform allows them to receive updates on where their money is going and all the good it’s doing. They’ll also get personalised thank you messages and notifications about new projects, reminding them of their contribution to the charity mission.

If you want to get more people playing tennis, a good place to start is by finding out why people play, or might not be playing it, in the first place. You have to put yourself in other people’s shoes, take the time to listen to their experiences, and put in the work to find solutions. By solving accessibility problems in sport, we can learn lessons about how to make the rest of society fairer and more inclusive.

Physically, tennis is a sport that can be played in many different ways, by lots of different people. However, when we started working with the LTA, we found that the impression people were getting of tennis online could present a digital barrier before they even hit the court.

We’ve helped redesign the LTA website to become the ‘shop window’ for the sport, embracing the fun and vibrant character of the LTA’s ‘Play Your Way’ brand. Navigation of the website has been simplified and we’ve added case studies to showcase stories of players who have been helped by the LTA. Through careful consultation with users, we were also able to make sure that the website now meets the official standards for people with disabilities and other impairments.

Tennis is sometimes seen as a bit elitist, stuffy, and complicated. The LTA wants to change that. The aim is to communicate that tennis is a fun, welcoming sport, open to everyone.

They say it takes two to tango. Well, the same is true for tennis. If you come from an area where nobody you know plays, it can be difficult to find a training partner. And when you’re ready to compete, finding opponents of your own standard could be even harder.

In 2021, the International Tennis Federation introduced the World Tennis Number, a real-time skill level rating for all tennis players across the globe, regardless of age, gender or ability.

We’ve built a World Tennis Number widget into the new Advantage Player Portal. The widget helps you to match with fellow players of a similar standard in your local area, so you’ll always be able to find someone to play.

Change is a funny word. It can take years of hard work or it can happen in the blink of an eye. Working with the LTA, we’ve learnt that there’s a value to both types of change. We want to build deeply useful systems that last for years while also providing those ‘magic moments’ that inspire people to look at tennis in a whole new way. Whether it’s vast online player portals or inspiring kids through unique augmented reality experiences, we’re exploring all the ways tech can inspire and support people to pick up a racket.

Helping a nationwide organisation through a digital transformation can be a daunting task. It was key to develop an overarching digital strategy that would help the LTA accelerate change over the next five years.

We drew up a transformation roadmap. The strategy identified six customer groups and analysed whether their needs were currently being met by the LTA’s digital services.

From this analysis, our team identified three areas of change for the organisation: data and analytics, technology and the operating model. These would help us reach users from across the LTA, from clubs managing their court bookings, to first timers accessing the website.

All sports have a unique capacity to build communities. Whether it’s supporting your local team, organising charity events, or simply having a knock-about with your friends. We wanted to give all of the LTA’s members the perfect tool to help them interact with their tennis community even when they are not on the court. Using a brand-new online portal, we are helping strengthen the bonds of the tennis community, by making it easier to find coaching, play matches, and get tickets for the best pro tournaments.

If you’re learning the game, or looking to move up the competitive ranks, tracking your progress is essential.

We helped the LTA introduce Advantage, a new approach for their membership portal that allows players and fans to organise their bookings, matches, and rankings all in one place.

What’s more, the system provides a great way to access personalised content, from coaching tips for first timers to information on the latest ticket sales for the LTA’s upcoming tournaments.

In 2022 the system surpassed one million sign ups, meaning that for the first time the LTA is getting accurate data on just how popular tennis is as a sport. With the help of the portal, the LTA can now implement targeted strategies to help even more people get on court.

Some tennis clubs in the UK have been around for well over one hundred years. Social media has not.

Helping tennis club volunteers and staff get up to speed on the latest technology is vital if clubs are going to attract and interact with a new generation of players. It’s not about doing away with heritage but finding new ways to share the passion of coaches, staff and volunteers with more and more people.

We’re not going to offer a qualified tennis coach tips on how to tidy up their backhand.

What we can do is help support coaches, venues and their volunteers to adopt digital as they embrace new technology and welcome players from different backgrounds. Whether moving their bookings online or promoting themselves on social platforms. Our ‘digital champions’ are helping the clubs and people at hearts of our communities by mentoring the 6,000 coaches, upskilling 2,000 venues and helping improve their business and digital skills.

Through this digital upskilling we can help coaches and clubs reach new audiences and become resilient businesses for years to come.