Pongbot joins the Australian Open, with an AO Pace S Pro on the way

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A ball machine that waits for you to get back into position makes solo tennis practice a different proposition. Pongbot has been building that idea into its training hardware, and now it has a much bigger stage: the Australian Open.

The new multi-year partnership names Pongbot the Official Ball Machine of the Australian Open and Official Ball Machine Supplier of the National Tennis Academy. It covers training technology and fan engagement at Australian Open 2027, while connecting the company’s equipment with Australia’s player development pathway.

Price: AO Pace S Pro pricing hasn’t been announced.
Where to buy: Not yet available. Pongbot’s Australian Open page has the preview.

There’s already hardware to put alongside the announcement. Pongbot is previewing the AO Pace S Pro, a blue-accented special edition with Australian Open and Pongbot branding. It’s marked “Coming Soon,” with no release date or price yet. For anyone following the company’s Aura launch, that model name is useful: the Australian Open edition currently being shown is a Pace S Pro.

Why the academy connection is worth watching

The National Tennis Academy role gives this agreement a practical training component. Pongbot’s equipment, including AI Coach, is intended to support repeatable practice, data collection, and performance analysis. That creates an opportunity to use the technology within a player development program, where a machine’s usefulness depends on how well it fits the work players and coaches are already doing.

Repetition is the obvious starting point. Being able to revisit a drill gives a player time to work on a particular movement, while performance records can give the coach something to examine afterward. The useful question is what those records reveal about the session and how they help shape the next one. The announcement doesn’t include measured training outcomes.

Pongbot CEO Haibo Zhang framed the goal as helping players “turn sustained effort into meaningful progress.” Tennis Australia’s chief commercial officer, Cedric Cornelis, also linked the agreement to developing the next generation of players at the academy.

The technology behind the badge

We’ve covered the Pace S Pro’s approach to practice before. Its Recovery Trigger feature uses ultra-wideband positioning to detect when a player returns to a recovery position before sending the next ball. That makes getting back into place part of the drill itself.

Think of a sequence where you move wide for a forehand and then recover toward the center. With position-triggered feeding, the next shot can wait for that return. You can work on the movement between strokes as well as the stroke, without continually changing a fixed feed interval.

The standard Pace S Pro also offers Adaptive Rally, which adjusts shots around player movement, and Match Challenge, designed to vary a session’s pace and shot patterns. Its app supports custom routines alongside more than 560 programmed drills. These are the existing machine’s features; the AO edition’s complete specifications still haven’t been detailed.

Pongbot hasn’t announced whether the AO model changes the hardware or software beyond the co-branded design, or which accessories will be included.

Where Aura and Spotter fit

Pongbot’s Aura range takes a lighter approach, with a 7 kg base machine and support for tennis, pickleball, and padel. The package determines which sports are unlocked. A standard single-sport purchase doesn’t automatically include all three.

The camera distinction is just as useful. Base Aura handles programmable drills, app control, and voice commands. Aura S adds Spotter, the removable dual-camera vision module, for shot tracking and analysis. Pongbot positions that camera system as the basis for feedback on a player’s session, including movement and shot patterns. It’s a different sensing approach from the Pace S Pro’s ultra-wideband positioning.

Spotter also has a role away from the ball feeder. With the separate Spotter Base, it’s designed for player-to-player features such as match reports, highlights, and streaming assistance. Someone who wants to analyze matches between people therefore has a different setup to consider from someone practicing alone.

Price: AO Pace S Pro pricing hasn’t been announced.
Where to buy: Not yet available. Pongbot’s Australian Open page has the preview.

The AO Pace S Pro’s price, release date, and final package will determine how it fits alongside those existing options. Until then, the academy partnership is the part to follow: it puts Pongbot’s ambition to combine repeatable drills with useful performance feedback into a player development setting.

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