MELBOURNE, Australia — One moment, they are playing tennis. The next, they disappear from the court, or melt into a puddle, or do a backflip mid-point. Their rackets flail independently from their hands and sometimes disappear completely. Their heads are oversized. They are the best tennis players in the world; they are the undisputed stars of the 2025 Australian Open.
They are also cartoons.
There’s Daniil Medvedev, last year’s finalist, whaling his racket into the net.
There’s Madison Keys, this year’s semifinalist, running down a ball before backflipping into the air and disappearing, causing Elena-Gabriela Ruse to miss a volley.
And there’s Jack Draper, feeling the effects of five three-set matches in a row and dissolving into the court.
These clips are courtesy of AO Animated, a YouTube livestream produced by the Australian Open that delivers video-game-style broadcasts of the matches played on Melbourne Park’s three show courts: Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena and John Cain Arena. It uses tracking data from the Hawk-Eye system used for electronic line calling (ELC) to map the movement of the players and the trajectory of the ball, before overlaying the skins – facial features, kits, the racket – that turns that data into a cartoon player.
This means that for all the fun of the glitches, the feed is a faithful reproduction of the live tennis, just on a short delay. There’s real commentary, crowd noise and chair umpire calls, alongside bobble-headed figures who bear only a passing resemblance to the players they’re representing. In a throwback to old computer games, the protagonists occasionally have minds of their own.
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