Acemate, a Shenzhen-based startup incubated by smart-home unicorn SwitchBot, has signed a partnership with the 2026 China Open, the highest-level men’s and women’s combined tennis tournament in Asia. The deal, announced on July 22, marks the company’s push from training clubs and shared courts into a professional tournament environment with global television exposure.
The Acemate robot is designed to do more than feed balls. Using binocular cameras and AI vision, it tracks the player’s strokes, moves into position, catches returned balls, and rallies back, aiming to replicate the rhythm of a human practice partner rather than the one-way output of a traditional ball machine. The device can serve at up to 97 km/h with topspin, backspin, flat shots, and lobs up to 8 metres.
Acemate has already been named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025 and is the official supplier for the 2025 Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen. The China Open partnership puts the consumer-facing Shenzhen robot in front of professional players, coaches, and broadcast audiences, a step the company is framing as validation that AI training robots can graduate from novelty to serious sports infrastructure.
Around the tournament, Acemate plans on-court experiences including a “20-ball challenge” that lets fans try the robot themselves. The company is backed by SwitchBot parent Woan Technology, which filed for a Hong Kong IPO in June 2026 with Acemate highlighted as part of its broader embodied-AI product family.
Translated and adapted from Leiphone (https://www.leiphone.com/category/industrynews/pjdTWH7byariX47G.html).