Inside the Mind of a High School Founder Building AI for Tennis

It was a cold Saturday morning in Connecticut. I was playing the second round of a Level 4 tournament - one of those matches where nothing was working. I was losing points I should be winning easily. My return game was breaking down. Double faults at the worst moments. I had a sense something was off, but no way to pinpoint what. My coach wasn't there. No one was tracking point by point.

After my loss and during the long car ride back, I found myself trying to piece together what had gone wrong. Replaying points in my head. Second guessing decisions. I had no data to look back on. No feedback. Just my memory, which was already starting to blur.

You Know Your Game. But Do You Have the Data to Prove It? 

This wasn't a one off. There were many moments like this in my tennis journey and they all pointed to the same thing. The problem wasn't my game. The problem was that I had no way to understand my game.

I had been playing competitive tennis, reaching top 10 in New England across age divisions. I knew what it felt like to work hard, to train, to show up ready to compete.

But no matter how much I practiced, there was always something I couldn't figure out.

Why did certain opponents expose the same weaknesses every time? Why did my game feel so different in matches than in training? I had no data to answer those questions. No way to track patterns or trends over time. Just a gut feeling that something wasn't working.

My coaches were invested in my development, but they couldn't be everywhere. Even the best coach in the world can only work with what they see. When there is no data connecting practice to match performance, everyone is guessing. 

Can AI Be Your Any-Time Coach?

That realization stayed with me. The data to answer those questions existed. Pattern recognition, win rate trends, shot analysis. Professional players had access to all of it. Not because the technology didn't exist but because it was reserved for elite players behind expensive paywalls.

So, I built MatchGenie.ai.

Players log matches through live tracking, video upload, or voice and text reflection, whatever works for them. The AI powered analytics breaks it down into patterns, weaknesses, and win rate trends across matches over time, identifying where a player consistently loses points, the shots that break down under pressure, and the tendencies an opponent can exploit. It then builds personalized training plans and opponent strategies so players walk onto the court with game strategies and options to respond.

For a coach working with a player, MatchGenie gives something they never had before. A complete picture of their player's development, available the moment a match is played, whether they were there or not. My coach who couldn't make the trip to Connecticut could still see exactly what happened in that tournament. The patterns, the breakdowns, the moments that need work. The conversation at the next practice isn't based on memory. It's based on data.

Coaches and players can set specific performance goals and track them over time- first serve percentage, unforced errors, mental attitude under pressure. The data makes progress visible in a way that gut feel never could.

AI is trained to act like a professional tennis coach. It takes in everything, match data, reflections, video, performance trends over time, and synthesizes it into insights that a coach would give after watching you play for months. Even during a tiebreaker you can ask for advice grounded in your own data. The difference is this coach never clocks out.

What If Every Junior Player Had the Same Data as the Pros?

Professional analytics have always existed. The problem was never technology. It was who it was built for. Access was limited to elite players at elite academies with the budgets to match.

AI changes that, automatically, instantly, and at a price any family can afford. That is what democratizing analytics and coaching actually looks like. And it doesn't stop at junior tennis.

College players face the same data gap. MatchGenie is built for any serious player who wants to close it.

Closing the Access Gap in Tennis

Building MatchGenie around analytics and AI was only part of the mission. The other part was making sure it actually reached the players who needed it most.

Tennis has always had an access problem. The cost of coaching, equipment, academy fees and tournament travel puts serious competitive tennis out of reach for a lot of talented players. And I knew that building another tool that only paying families could access would just recreate the same problem I set out to solve.

So, equity was never optional. Every paid subscription funds a free account for an underserved player. It is built fundamentally into our business model.

What Building a Startup in High School Taught Me

I developed MatchGenie because I care deeply about sport equity and wanted to change the fact that access to analytics and coaching support was determined by resources, not talent. 

On the technical side, what made MatchGenie possible was how accessible learning to code has become. Python and machine learning libraries including building data analysis pipelines and training models can now be picked up by anyone, even a high schooler. And then vibe coding changed the game entirely. The ability to move fast, iterate quickly, and build features accelerated everything. 

But what I am learning as a startup founder is that the technical side is not the hardest part. The reach, the scale and the traction is.

Tennis is a niche space and getting the right channels to connect with coaches, players and parents is taking far more effort than building the product itself.  Changing habits is even harder. Even when coaches and players understand the value, getting them to sign up, log matches and trust the data takes time. We have over 30 active players and coaches on the platform - and we are just getting started. My high school team is using MatchGenie for the season, a few clubs and academies in conversations, and college coaches showing interest.

If I could tell a fellow founder one thing it would be this. Build something you have personally experienced. Be persistent. As a high schooler, time and access to the right people are limited, so don't underestimate how long it takes to change behavior and scale. Even when the problem is real.

About the author: Sid Chalamalasetty is the founder of MatchGenie.ai, an AI powered tennis analytics and coaching platform. He also founded LetsTennis.org, a nonprofit connecting tennis enthusiasts with competitive young players who volunteer to offer free sessions and has led inclusive tennis clinics in the community. Interested in chatting? Connect with him on LinkedIn or email him at matchgenieai@gmail.com.