Second Serve Tennis

No Coach No Problem: SwingVision the Future of Tennis Coaching

• Second Serve with Carolyn Roach & Erin Conigliaro • Episode 291

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"Did you slow this down?" That's what friends ask when they see their SwingVision footage. Reality check: that's how we actually play! Now with expert coach reviews available worldwide, everyone can get elite feedback on their actual match play. Tennis improvement democratized.

SwingVision founder Swupnil returns to discuss the app's latest innovations, including a groundbreaking remote coaching feature and an upgraded motorized Swing Stick that automatically positions your phone for optimal court coverage.

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Use our referral link to get a FREE Swing Stick ($100 value) with your first year of SwingVision Pro. The bundles are only $149.99 (previously $179.99). This is a limited time offer that you won't want to miss!

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Carolyn:

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin and we really appreciate Swupnil coming back on the podcast. First off, happy birthday, Swupnil. Did you do anything fun for your birthday yesterday?

Swupnil:

Pretty chill. Just went to get some sushi in LA, which is, which is really nice. I've been craving that. I hadn't had that in a while. I got these new meta Ray-Ban glasses for my gift for my wife.

Erin:

I've seen those.

Swupnil:

Which I'm really excited because we're expecting a kid, and it's such a great way to record your kids without having to have your face behind a screen, because the cameras are just right here and so you can still like participate. So I just feel like it's like the I was telling my parents, it's like the 2025 way of like the VHS tapes that they used to do where they had it, you know.

Erin:

Yeah, where they were like holding it on their shoulder.

Swupnil:

Yeah, so it's like the modern way, but I'm excited for that. So yeah, no, but it's fun.

Erin:

Have you seen those, Caroline? No, I haven't.

Carolyn:

I always feel like I learned something new from Swapnil when he comes on. Yeah, so let me just look.

Swupnil:

These aren't actually them. This is just some glasses that I have here blue light glasses, but they look like this, pretty much the same, like you won't even be able to tell the difference. But there's a little camera right here and a little camera right here, that's it, and so you don't need to take out your phone anymore to like record your kids doing something cute. Like you can just record with your glasses and you can still like participate with whatever activity is Right. So it's just like. It's kind of like the better way to record stuff. And my brother-in-law had it and we went on this trip to Japan with our nephews like last year, and he was using it constantly. We were like walking around in parks and the kids are doing all kinds of funny stuff and it's just like it's so nice, like you don't have to have your phone in front of you.

Erin:

So it's just, it's like so much better. This is a really good segue into my first question, which is not on our list to ask you, but that's just me. You should integrate those into SwingVision somehow with sunglasses playing, because almost everyone rec players wear sunglasses. Future, you know, future feature.

Swupnil:

Definitely. I mean, it's so funny you said that because I think just yesterday on X I saw somebody saying this about swing vision specifically. They were like there's so many use cases I'm excited for, with augmented reality and swing visions at the top of the list. I'd love to be able to see stats in real time on my glasses and stuff. So I think a lot of these glasses are going to move in that direction. Pretty soon you'll see little bits of information on top of the glasses. That's where I think it's all going to go, and so that could be kind of a fun way to integrate it with SwingVision too.

Erin:

That's kind of like Carolyn has a new car and I know you have some fancy car, but and all this stuff is on the dashboard right yeah, so maybe it's that same kind of thing, but yeah I don't know how it would work for me. I don't know if I could see that close up yeah, they.

Swupnil:

I mean they show it like really small. So it's kind of proportionally similar to like looking at your phone um right, but it's gonna take a while for them to to improve that. I got to test out one of these Apple Vision Pro headsets last year and it's really bulky but I think they're trying to get it super thin and get it into just a normal pair of glasses. But I think the technology is still a few years away. But we'll be ready. As soon as the other guys build the hardware, we'll build the software.

Erin:

That's kind of the cool thing, though. You started out as, like you know, just a tennis tech company, and now you're tennis and pickleball but you also have like other people's, new technology that can feed into it, which I think is very cool totally.

Swupnil:

I mean, it's like what I always tell people is like we're just trying to solve like the most important problems for for our players and like our customers, and like whatever the solution is, we'll work into that. But right now most people use phones and so that's why we went that way. But if someday everybody's using glasses and they don't use phones anymore, we'll adapt right. So we want to make sure we're always taking advantage of what's available to make the best experience.

Erin:

Carolyn, what was our original first question? Because I feel like we just jumped in.

Carolyn:

Well, I think the first one was just to remind our audience. Swapnil's been on here before, but in case someone didn't listen to our previous episodes, can you tell us what SwingVision is Swapnil?

Swupnil:

no-transcript. And so it's like tracking the ball trajectory, the player movements, and so you get all kinds of cool stats like how fast are you serving, you know what's your first serve percentage. And so you get all kinds of cool stats like how fast are you serving, you know what's your first serve percentage, you get to see the depth of your returns, like all those kinds of stats that you normally would only get as a professional. You can now get as an amateur. But then on top of that, you also get highlights of your game too, so you can see like your best rallies, your longest rallies, all your forehand winners or your backhand errors, like whatever you want to do, whatever you're trying to get out of it you can do, whether you're trying to improve your game or just like show off to your friends. It's just like a really fun way to sort of track, share and improve your game, all with just like this one app.

Erin:

One of the things that I love to do at night is sit on like Instagram and watch other like what you guys put in. You know it, it's like other people's games from around the world.

Erin:

You just take their little clips and show, and you do a lot of your own too, which I love, but it's like everyone plays so differently and we don't look like pros. In fact, I may have said this in a past episode, but what I think is very funny is when I use SwingVision and all my friends are like at first they're like, oh gosh, I don't want to see that. And then I'm like, oh no, but you get your stats and you get your. You know if you're hitting a forehand or a backhand, and you know. And then they go, oh okay, they're interested. And then when I send them the video, they go, did you slow this down? Like, is this in slow-mo?

Erin:

I was like, no, that's how we play, believe it or not, but I do love like you guys put up a bunch on Instagram of other people and I love to see like other people playing where they're playing the types of courts you know, and um, I love you. Know you guys usually do either like a funny shot or you know something really good.

Swupnil:

But yeah, that's just a side note, I just love that no, totally, that's probably been like one of the most fun parts of like building the product too is just seeing like everybody using it around the world. And yeah, lately we've been getting we actually have, um, like china is our second biggest country now, uh, brazil is our third biggest country. Like it's crazy like we haven't even done a lot of marketing there. We haven't even translated the app into these other languages yet. We're working on that right now. So, um, it's just cool to see the community kind of internationally as well and it's so fun.

Swupnil:

You'll see, yeah, exactly like you said, like there's just tennis is so different like culturally in every country as well. Um, and then obviously, there's like different kinds of tennis is so different like culturally in every country as well. Um, and then obviously there's like different kinds of like training levels and like, uh, infrastructure. You know, like not every country has like a federation, like a usta with like proper coaching and all that. So obviously, like the playing styles can differ a lot. Obviously, the court services are like super different and you see all kinds of wacky stuff, but it's cool to see everyone sort of like kind of connected through this like same sport that we all play, but it's fun to watch that, for sure.

Erin:

So tell us your latest feature. The reason we wanted to have you back on was because you keep I mean, like we talked about at the beginning, you keep adding features, which is really cool. But talk about the coaching feature specifically, because, I will say, one of the things that I know that I'm privileged to do is to belong to a tennis club. But we also know, however, millions of people play around the world. You know there's a lot of parks and rec in the US. There's a lot of people that just go out to any court and hit a ball and so, and also, like when I take a tennis lesson, it's super expensive, especially on my own, and then even in clinics, you know you can take a clinic with a pro, but you're not getting like personal feedback. So I really want to hear about the new coaching feature that is in the app now.

Swupnil:

Yeah, I mean, I guess for some additional context on like why we created it too. You know, we're we're really careful about like trying to add new things at this point, because now the company's like matured a bit. But we're only going to do it if, like, we're seeing a lot of demand or there's just a lot of people who really want it and there's like a problem that we can solve there. And so what we started to see happen is people, especially like juniors, playing out of like academies, would go um, you know, on the road and play like a tournament and they'd record their matches with swing vision and then they'd send the videos to their coach back home, who's like out of their academy, and then the coach would like watch the video in in one window like on their computer. They'd have like google docs open and like write a bunch of notes and they'd say like oh, at the you know second game, like 40, 15 point, you did this, and like they type all this stuff out and it was very detailed. But then now when a student, if you have to like review, that, it's like kind of clunky because it's like you have these Google docs, you have all these notes and you're kind of like jumping back and forth in the video. And so what was interesting was like people were already starting to use like SwingVision for this, like remote coaching, but it was very fragmented. And so we realized, like what if we just put that all within the platform and made it so that the coach could just leave comments directly on the Swing, and then they could even do like a screen recording, like talking through the video, and that all gets embedded into the video as well, like on the side. And so we ended up building that, and then that's what we call coach reviews and we've opened this up to any player in the world who uses SwingVision.

Swupnil:

So basically you just record your matches, like you've already been doing, but now you can actually submit it to a coach. And so we have this like marketplace of coaches that we've like curated and you basically submit to them and they're pretty quick about it. Within like a few days they'll go through and like leave a bunch of comments, they'll do a screen recording, they'll give like a high level summary as well. So they provide a lot of information. It's very valuable and, like you said, the price point is like way more accessible. You know, it's a lot less than an in-person lesson. There's some coaches that are, you know, as little as like $40 for like an entire match and it's a very thorough analysis, like if you're playing a two-hour match. They have to spend a lot of time to do that, but they're really like, they're really thorough, they provide really good feedback and these aren't just like any coaches. These are going the very best coaches from, like Canada, the US, texas, australia and then also the UK. So we've worked with, like the federations in each of these countries these four countries for now to onboard like the very best coaches, and so it's maybe like 10 to 20 from each country and you're just getting the best of the best.

Swupnil:

And these are people who are also like, super tech savvy, familiar with Swing Vision and, yeah, like I said, it's opened up to anybody in the world and that's great for people, like you said, who maybe don't have access to a club or don't have access to local pros.

Swupnil:

But even if you're somebody who's like um, playing out of a club, you know you might go somewhere else to play matches and your coach obviously can't go with you to all your matches, like they can only be with you at the lesson time, um, and they've they and time and they've got other stuff to do. So you know you can actually still work with your existing coaches too and so like, even existing coaches can still sign up to be on the platform and offer their services to, like, their students. They won't necessarily be on that like public marketplace that like is exposed to everybody, but actually anybody can actually just join the platform and become a coach and with your existing students they could continue to offer their services and so like. If you have a coach you really like and you're familiar with, you could just continue to work with them too. So it kind of, you know, fits your boat. Whichever way you go.

Erin:

Yeah, our club actually uses it for their junior program. In fact, they're doing a huge training on it coming up soon.

Erin:

And they do that exactly. They use it for their own, you know, when they're in person, but they, they're using it like you just described, which someone just told me that the other day, and I was like I need to come to this, you know this, this coaching session, just to see how they're teaching. Um, you know everybody how to use it, but our club is, you know, very big on it for the juniors, Cause, you know, the juniors are the juniors are the important tennis players.

Carolyn:

Well, a lot better, but do they give you?

Swupnil:

tips, like for your serve, or is it more strategy? Is it a little bit of both? Yeah, so you can actually choose what kind of feedback you want them to focus on. So we have like a bunch of different categories that you can pick, and strategy is one of them footwork technique and then you can choose like a specific shot to like I'm specifically trying to work on my forehand, or my return to serve, or my second serve. So you can leave some comments and like be pretty tactical about it to help them kind of focus their feedback. So yeah, and just kind of runs the gamut. And then, like some coaches are like stronger in some things compared to others, and so they've also listed that on their profiles. So that's something you can kind of consider when you're picking a coach as well.

Erin:

And cool for coaches too, because mostly I mean you know a hundred percent of the time they have to be on a court, usually coaching you know coaching someone so to have this I mean even for, you know, for there to build a business for themselves to be able to, you know, actually be able to be a work from home kind of person, which you know there's no tennis coach that I know that can work from home, but this is kind of this is building that for them. So I think that's a really cool opportunity.

Swupnil:

Totally. That's. That's our whole, that's our you know kind of goal here, as well as serving, servicing coaches. And it's really cool because I think this is the first sort of like product experience that we've built for coaches specifically. Like for the last six years, swimvision's really been like player focused, so I'm really excited to be able to like help out coaches and like fill this amazing platform for them.

Swupnil:

And, like you said, there's like rainy days sometimes and also like no one's coaching like literally eight hours a day, Like that's just not a thing that happens really for most coaches. So there's a lot of gaps in time where, like they could be making more money and like they don't have like kind of nine to five jobs like most other people, so's it's a struggle. So I think this will really open that up for them, hopefully make it easier um and allow them to also just like reach a much bigger audience, build a bigger following. So it's kind of like a new era for coaching and I'm excited, especially like in a few years, that like next generation of coaches who've already grown up on like technology and like super tech savvy, like they're gonna probably just knock it out of the park and find really creative ways right to use this.

Erin:

I'm just thinking of how my kids can just grab my phone and do anything, and I'm like wait, slow down, it's intense.

Carolyn:

I want to do this especially with my serve. My serve is struggling.

Swupnil:

I need someone to look at it, but then everything.

Carolyn:

I think, I'm going to have to do everything like strategy forehand, backhand. It's like I need help with everything.

Swupnil:

So the last thing I'd mention is like we do have a new version of our swing stick coming out, which is like kind of cool. I think it's actually going to really be important for making sure that the line calling experience is actually good everywhere, because one of the things with the swing stick today is like it's a little bit of a manual setup process and you have to like basically to explain it. You have to put your phone in here and then you have to like angle it correctly right to make sure it sees the court.

Erin:

He's showing us the swing stick, by the way.

Swupnil:

Yeah, if you're like listening, I'm showing you the swing stick. But it has this like phone holder on the top and you have to like kind of tilt it down and make sure it's like angled correctly to see the court. And sometimes that can take a bit of trial and error. You put it up on the fence, you check your watch and it's like not quite angled properly to bring it down and then angle it again so you know it can take a few tries. And then you know some people also just like don't really want to spend that much, much time getting the exact perfect angle. So just kind of live with whatever it happens to be, and sometimes part of the court is cut off or things like that. And so to improve that and make it a lot faster, we're actually putting a motor into the swing stick. So it sounds like pretty sci-fi.

Erin:

It will find the court.

Swupnil:

It will find the court for you.

Swupnil:

That's amazing, so I actually have a prototype of it right here, which, again will find the court. It will find the court for you. So I actually have a prototype of it right here. So, um, which again your most of your listeners can't see, but anyways you guys can see it. So it's cool, um, and so you can see it has like a little blue light on it, so it has bluetooth, and so you put your phone in and then this, this has a motor inside it now, and then it will like rotate and find the court for you.

Swupnil:

So the setup will be like so much easier and so much more standardized, like you can just trust that like, when you put it up, as long as you have it kind of in the middle of the court, it's going to find the court. It's going to make sure it's like centered in view. And so, again, when you go to like the idea of getting line calling at scale, you know, across like thousands of matches around the country, this is going to make that setup so easy for everybody. And so it's just like you don't need to be a tech expert, you don't even need to have like an Apple watch, like as long as you just have a phone, literally just stick the phone in, pair it with the with the stick, put it on top, and then it will just find the cord and do its thing and you can trust that it's going to have the right angle to provide the best possible line calls, and so that's going to just make it like so much better.

Carolyn:

That's great Cause I have had trouble before, not trouble, but just where I'm put it up I'm like, oh, that's not right, let me take it down, adjust it, put it back. This makes it so easy just to pop your phone in and put it up and then play.

Swupnil:

Yeah, it just takes a bit of time right now, and so, um, yeah, it's just, you wouldn't have to, you won't have to lose any court time, you know either.

Carolyn:

But no, I was going to tell you this and I was going to tell Aaron too. I have played matches USTA matches I'm coming back to tennis and I've not been using swing vision during the matches. And during the match I'm like why did I not put up swing vision? Because it's made me so mad. Somebody said I did a double bounce. You know, my two opponents are like that's a double bounce and I just didn't have it in me to fight. And then I know it's my call, but you know, I just don't want to deal with it and I don't even care about so. I just gave him the point. I was like fine, because I know sometimes you think you get it but you don't.

Carolyn:

But in my mind I'm like why did I?

Erin:

not record this Not to get the point back, but just to know, afterwards after I watch it Just some closure.

Swupnil:

Yeah, I want some closure. Yeah, she wants closure.

Carolyn:

That's exactly right.

Erin:

I thought about it the other day when I lost a match 0-1. And I was like what went wrong? And it just goes so fast that you're like, oh, I really need to go back and go through all those points. But Carolyn likes Swing Vision because she thinks it'll stop all fighting in league tennis at some point if we could actually get the darn line calling.

Swupnil:

That's been another focus for us too. We definitely got to talk about that too.

Carolyn:

Thanks to Swapnil for coming on the podcast. We have one more episode where we discuss when he thinks electronic line calling will finally occur in adult tennis, Memorable moments he's had this past year and how Sw when he thinks electronic line calling will finally occur in adult tennis, memorable moments he's had this past year and how SwingVision could have prevented Aaron from getting really upset and even crying after an adult rec match, and we don't want that to happen to anyone. Also, we have a referral link in our show notes which makes the cost of the pro subscription go down from $180 to $150 for a year and includes the new swing stick for free. For the coach reviews, SwingVision is giving a 10% discount on every player's first review as a limited time offer. We hope you check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.