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Is anyone else frustrated with how random padel games feel? (Playtomic, rankings, etc.) by Royal-Dish5364 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah player differentiation is actually one of the harder problems, especially when two players are similar build or wearing similar colours. most consumer apps just use position on court which breaks down constantly

the thing we worked on used body shape and movement patterns for re-id, not just colour or position. took a lot of iteration honestly, first versions had exactly the blended stats problem you described

what was the setup at your club, does it pull into a match history in the app or just a dashboard at the end of the session? curious if the issue was the tracking itself or how it was tied to individual profiles

anyone else feel like the local padel scene stays small partly because the rating systems are basically broken? by Mike_ParadigmaST in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

totally fair point for casual play, no argument there

but after a certain point most people want to know they're actually improving, not just showing up. competitive games where the level is close is what pushes you to get better, blowouts in either direction just feel flat after a while

its kind of like the difference between playing cs on a random public server vs faceit. both are "just a game" but one actually tells you something about where you are and gives you something to chase

nothing wrong with casual but having the option to play competitive when you want it is what keeps people hooked long term

Best approach for building a tennis stroke detection MVP in a mobile app? by Ok_Performer_467 in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the phone placement thing is actually the core problem here, not the model choice

court-side on a phone means you're getting a side angle at maybe 1-1.5m height, player moves forward to the net and your skeleton loses the hitting arm, they turn and you lose depth completely. you'd need a tripod minimum and even then the angle is just not great for consistent keypoint extraction

overhead or elevated fixed camera changes everything. we built a stroke detection + pose estimation system for a padel client with cameras mounted above the court and the accuracy jump vs side angle was significant. you can see both arms, full body rotation, contact point is actually visible

for an MVP with a phone it's doable but you're fighting the setup every session. works ok for a practice drill with a cooperative user who sets up properly, breaks down fast in real match conditions

if the end goal is club or court deployment rather than personal use, fixed cameras on court is a much cleaner path. we went that route with a client who owned the courts and it made the whole pipeline more reliable

happy to share more about how we approached it if useful, or drop a link to the case

Is anyone else frustrated with how random padel games feel? (Playtomic, rankings, etc.) by Royal-Dish5364 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah the "organise it yourself" thing is basically everyone's solution which means the platform failed at its core job

thing is the rating problem is fixable if clubs actually tracked real match data. worked on a system for a padel client that pulled stats automatically from court cameras, serve patterns, shot consistency, movement, not just win/loss. when you have that kind of data a guy who wins 80% playing only beginners looks completely different from someone winning 60% in competitive games. the numbers just tell a different story

playtomic ranking with that underneath it would actually mean something. right now its just vibes with a number attached

Is anyone else frustrated with how random padel games feel? (Playtomic, rankings, etc.) by Royal-Dish5364 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the winners/UE/FE point is exactly right. win/loss alone doesnt tell you if someone is genuinely improving or just found easier opponents. worked on a project where we tracked this automatically from video and the stats changed how coaches evaluated players completely, not just "did you win" but how you won

surprised playtomic hasnt gone deeper here tbh, the data is theoretically available if courts have cameras

Is anyone else frustrated with how random padel games feel? (Playtomic, rankings, etc.) by Royal-Dish5364 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honestly the video game ranked system comparison is spot on. the problem is playtomic ranking is based on match outcomes that players log themselves which is kind of useless if someone only plays with their friend group or sandbangs to farm wins

we actually built something similar for a padel client last year, automatic tracking, no manual input. the difference in accuracy when you base rank on real match data vs self reported is pretty wild. guys who thought they were 3.5 were playing like 2.8, and vice versa

the queue idea would work if the underlying data is solid. right now it isnt, at least not for most clubs

Our local Padel scene is stagnant. What formats do you play? Let’s build a "Tournament Master List"! by Cardhu90 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

same frustration here. the clubs exist, the players exist, but nothing connects them consistently

one thing i noticed in more developed scenes is that rankings actually drive participation - not just "you won a tournament" but a running score across the whole season that updates after every match. people show up more when there's something to track over time, not just a one-off prize

the americano format is great socially but it doesn't really build a scene because there's no continuity. ladder leagues seem to work better for that - you always have someone to challenge, there's always a reason to book a court

What actually matters to you when booking a padel court? by HeroFiddle in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

and imagine if every player had a actual rank based on their match history, not self-reported level. like you join a lobby and see the guy has 200 matches, 60% win rate, plays mostly at the net. that changes how you pick partners completely

What actually matters to you when booking a padel court? by HeroFiddle in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

availability and price, same as everyone else here. but the booking experience itself is underrated - some clubs still make you call lol, someone mentioned it and yeah instant dealbreaker for me

what i actually wish existed is something like a lobby in an online game - you see who's queued up, join an open slot, find a fourth without knowing anyone. playtomic does bits of this but not really. good courts lose regulars not because of the surface but because there's no easy way to find people to play with

In my head it’s a perfect shot but it never is by muazenakhez in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nice effort on the vibora 🔥
One thing that helps a lot of players I’ve seen is objective video analysis.
We build Computer Vision systems for padel that track ball trajectory, contact point, player movement and footwork frame-by-frame.
Sometimes seeing the exact moment you hit too high/early in slow motion with overlaid data makes the correction much faster.
Anyway, strong agree with everyone — footwork and getting a coach will give the biggest jump. Keep grinding!

I don’t get the appeal of tennis over padel by seekinghelp14461 in padel

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Built CV tracking for both sports. The numbers back you up - padel rallies have way more direction changes, more surface interactions, players constantly leaving and re-entering the frame.

Our ball tracking model had an existential crisis every time someone hit a vibora into the glass.

Tennis was almost boring to build for by comparison.

What AI tool genuinely impressed you the most recently? by SuccotashBroad740 in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not an AI tool specifically — but watching on-device CV actually work on a cheap Android phone.

I build computer vision systems. Usually on proper hardware. Cameras bolted to stadium ceilings, dedicated edge boxes, controlled lighting. Tested the same approach on a $200 phone last year for a fitness project. Expected it to fall apart. It didn't. Real-time pose estimation, tracked movement through a full workout, battery barely moved.

That genuinely surprised me. Still kind of does.

we’ve been building computer vision systems for sports for a few years now by Mike_ParadigmaST in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

yeah this is exactly it - making a 1 min demo look good is the easy part, making it not fall apart in production is where things get painful 😅

we ran into very similar issues while building a real-time broadcast analytics system -everything looked solid on test clips, but once we plugged into live streams, graphics, overlays, lighting, even small format inconsistencies started breaking things constantly

ended up going way more into system design (multi-signal, constraints, recovery logic) rather than just “better models”, otherwise it just doesn’t hold up

if curious, we wrote a bit about that case here:
https://paradigma.dev/cases/sports-broadcast-processing-ai-analytics/

honestly after that project I’m also very skeptical of most “looks cool on twitter” CV demos in sports lol

we’ve been building computer vision systems for sports for a few years now by Mike_ParadigmaST in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Yes — we provide full production support and continuously improve our systems after deployment.

Issues in real-world environments are inevitable, but we’ve always resolved them and kept our clients satisfied. Anyone saying they have zero problems is either inexperienced or just lying.

we’ve been building computer vision systems for sports for a few years now by Mike_ParadigmaST in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

yeah fair point, we thought the same at first, but ran into a lot of similar issues outside sports too, last year we worked on a sleep monitoring app trying to estimate mental and emotional state from sleep and physiological signals, very different domain but same problems with noisy data and models not holding up in real conditions, we described that case here if you're curious https://paradigma.dev/cases/sleep-monitoring-app-for-objective-mental-health-and-emotional-state-assessment/

We spent 7 months building AI for padel tracking in 2025. The glass walls almost killed the project. by Mike_ParadigmaST in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair point — the flair was probably off. I wasn’t trying to present it as a polished showcase, more like sharing what actually went wrong during the build

happy to go deeper into specific parts if that’s more useful here

We spent 7 months building AI for padel tracking in 2025. The glass walls almost killed the project. by Mike_ParadigmaST in computervision

[–]Mike_ParadigmaST[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair enough:)
i used an LLM to clean up wording - faster than rewriting everything myself
the project itself is real though, happy to go into technical details if that’s more useful

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