I don't know tennis well. Will the report make sense to me?

Yes — that's how it's written. The summary page uses plain English: 'cross-court forehands going long', 'second serves landing short', 'backhand depth improved 18% over last month'. The technical breakdown is for coaches; the summary is for parents and players. You don't need to read both.

How do I share the report with my child's coach?

Tap share on the PDF in the AceSense app and email or AirDrop it. Coaches who already work with AceSense will know what to do; coaches who haven't seen one before tend to find it self-explanatory. We have a one-page guide at /how-to/share-report-with-coach if you want to print it for them.

Is this going to make me a sideline coach?

Honest answer: it can, if you let it. The whole point of AceSense for parents is the opposite — you don't need to coach from the sideline because the data is in the report. Watch the match, cheer, drive home, look at the report together over dinner if your child wants to. The report is the boundary that lets you stay a parent.

What about privacy? My child is a minor.

Video uploads are stored in EU-region cloud storage (Firebase europe-west1) and are private to your account. We don't publish reports, we don't share videos, we don't train models on your child's footage without explicit opt-in. The full privacy policy is at /privacy. If your child plays tournaments where filming is restricted, check the tournament rules — that's on you, not us.

Can I do this with a 7-year-old?

We don't recommend it. The technique scores are calibrated to U12 and up, and the value/cost ratio for very young players is poor — they're still building motor patterns, not refining them. The honest answer for under-10s is 'have fun, don't measure too much'. Once your child is on a green ball or yellow ball regularly, the report starts earning its keep.

AceSense for Parents of Junior Tennis Players

Track your junior's tennis progress with AceSense — shareable reports, no coaching from the sideline, no SmartCourt required.

Your child plays competitive tennis. You're at tournaments most weekends, you write the cheques for lessons, and you're trying to do the impossible job of supporting their progress without becoming the parent who coaches from the sideline. You don't need another tool — you need less ambiguity. Less "how was that match really" and more here's what changed.

This page is how AceSense fits into that role, written for parents who want to know what their kid's tennis actually looks like — without coaching it themselves.

Why this page exists

There's a Talk Tennis thread titled "Coaches/Parents - match tracking & statistics app?" that's been live for years. Parents kept asking the same question: I don't want to be the sideline coach, but I want to know what's actually happening in my kid's matches, and the lessons are too expensive to be the only data point. Most of the answers were "use SwingVision," but SwingVision is iOS-only and tied to an Apple Watch on the player's wrist. For a junior at 11 years old, that's both expensive and weird.

AceSense exists because the answer should be: film it, upload it, look at the report. No watch. No subscription per parent. No iOS lock-in.

The persona this page is for

You'll get value from AceSense as a parent if:

Your child is U12–U18, on a green ball or yellow ball, and plays tournaments — not just summer camps.
You drive to tournaments at least twice a month.
You want progress visibility between lessons without becoming the bottleneck for it.
You either don't have a coach every week, or your coach charges €60+/lesson and you'd like to maximize that hour.

If your child is a 6-year-old who plays once a week and loves it, this isn't the right tool. Let them play. Come back when they're on yellow ball.

The monthly workflow for parents

Here's how it actually fits into a tournament-parent month, without adding work to your already-loaded weekend.

1. Film one tournament match a week

You're already at the match. The phone is in your hand or your bag. Mount it behind the baseline (a €15 fence clip is fine — the whole filming guide is here) at the start of the warm-up, hit record, sit down, watch like a human. Don't fiddle with it during the match. The camera does its job.

2. Upload on the way home

In the car, on the parent app, takes 30 seconds. Ten to fifteen minutes later, the report is ready.

3. Look at the report with your child, not at them

This is the bit that matters. Open the PDF together, after dinner, on the iPad. The summary page is in plain English: shot counts, where the bounces landed (the court heatmap), the one technical thing that improved or got worse versus last month. Your child reads it. You ask one question, not five. The conversation should be short.

The mistake — and this comes from real conversations with the first wave of AceSense parents — is using the report to win arguments. "See? You weren't following through, just like I said." That's the fastest way to make your child hate the tool. The right framing is: "What jumps out at you?" Then listen.

4. Send the PDF to the coach

This is the move that earns AceSense its keep. Tap share, send to the coach. The coach now walks into the next lesson knowing exactly what the last tournament looked like, without a 10-minute "remind me what happened" preamble. That's €10 of lesson time you didn't waste. Over a year, the report pays for the subscription.

The coach perspective on this is in /use-cases/junior-coaches — read it if your child's coach hasn't seen AceSense yet. Most coaches respond well; the report is the kind of artefact a coach has wanted for years and never had at this price.

The feature that earns its keep for parents: the shareable PDF

Of all the AceSense features, the one that makes this workflow work is the PDF coaching report. It's the artefact you can hand to a coach. It's the artefact you can save in the kid's Drive folder. It's the artefact your child can read on a phone. The court heatmap and stroke quality scores are great — but the shareable, durable, plain-English report is what makes AceSense useful in a parent's life specifically.

The other features that come close: shot detection (so the report is per-shot, not summary-only) and the court heatmap (because it's the one image that says "they're avoiding their backhand" without anyone needing to know tennis).

What changes in 4 weeks

If you record one match a week for a month and follow the loop, here's the parent-side ROI:

Week 1: You see the match in a way you couldn't from the sideline. (You sat through it. The report shows it.)
Week 2: First "I told you so" moment that you don't have to say out loud. The kid sees their second-serve placement, you don't have to mention it. Saved you a hard conversation.
Week 3: Your child starts referencing the report unprompted. "Last week my forehand was deeper, what's different?" This is the goal state — the kid owns the data, not you.
Week 4: The coach has a baseline they didn't have before. The lessons get tighter. You stop feeling like you're flying blind on €240 a month of coaching.

We don't promise rapid ranking jumps. Junior tennis ranking is a slow-burn over years. We promise you'll know what you're paying for, and your child will know what they're working on.

When AceSense isn't the right tool for you

Honest list. Skip AceSense if:

Your child is under 10 or below green-ball. Too noisy, not the point of the game at that age.
You're already at an academy with hard-wired video and a sports-science staff. You're getting more there than we can give.
You're using this to pressure your child. Tools don't fix this. The kid will hate the tool, then hate the sport. Walk away from it. We'd rather not have you as a customer.
The tournaments your child plays prohibit filming. Some tournaments do — check the rules. We don't want to put you in an awkward position.

On the "am I being that parent" question

You're not. Here's why: filming and reviewing your own performance is a thing every athlete in every sport does at every level above recreational. Watching it back with structure is the highest-leverage thing a junior can do. The thing that makes tennis parents that parent isn't the data — it's the use of the data. If you treat the report as your child's tool (theirs to look at, theirs to share, theirs to ignore some weeks), you're being a great tennis parent. If you treat it as your dashboard for managing them, you're being the other thing.

The report is for them. You're the chauffeur, the cheerleader, and the upload button. That's the whole job.

Pricing

Free tier handles 2 analysed matches a month — fine for one-tournament-weekend cadence. Paid tiers if you want unlimited and longitudinal tracking. Full breakdown at /pricing. Compare to coaching cost per hour: a single skipped lesson pays for a year of AceSense.

Ready to try? Film your child's next tournament match, upload it free, and read it together over dinner. Or look at how AceSense actually works first if you want to know what's happening to the video. Either is fine — but the loop only starts when you record one.

Frequently asked questions

I don't know tennis well. Will the report make sense to me?: Yes — that's how it's written. The summary page uses plain English: 'cross-court forehands going long', 'second serves landing short', 'backhand depth improved 18% over last month'. The technical breakdown is for coaches; the summary is for parents and players. You don't need to read both.
How do I share the report with my child's coach?: Tap share on the PDF in the AceSense app and email or AirDrop it. Coaches who already work with AceSense will know what to do; coaches who haven't seen one before tend to find it self-explanatory. We have a one-page guide at /how-to/share-report-with-coach if you want to print it for them.
Is this going to make me a sideline coach?: Honest answer: it can, if you let it. The whole point of AceSense for parents is the opposite — you don't need to coach from the sideline because the data is in the report. Watch the match, cheer, drive home, look at the report together over dinner if your child wants to. The report is the boundary that lets you stay a parent.
What about privacy? My child is a minor.: Video uploads are stored in EU-region cloud storage (Firebase europe-west1) and are private to your account. We don't publish reports, we don't share videos, we don't train models on your child's footage without explicit opt-in. The full privacy policy is at /privacy. If your child plays tournaments where filming is restricted, check the tournament rules — that's on you, not us.
Can I do this with a 7-year-old?: We don't recommend it. The technique scores are calibrated to U12 and up, and the value/cost ratio for very young players is poor — they're still building motor patterns, not refining them. The honest answer for under-10s is 'have fun, don't measure too much'. Once your child is on a green ball or yellow ball regularly, the report starts earning its keep.