Australian Open 2012: photos

World men's number three player, Roger Federer, smashes the ball back down the court with a confident one-handed forehand stroke in last night's session.

Underneath the arena — unbeknownst to the spectators sitting several feet above — lies a technology bunker that powers virtually the entire park. From player scheduling, umpire scoring, media broadcasting and statistics aggregation, these guys do it all.

The scoreboards around the ground are powered by 13 Lenovo laptops.

It's important that all of the official broadcast partners get the latest statistics as they happen. That's why statisticians and radar operators sit on each court and feed information back to this station for proper distribution.

The state-of-the-art media room that holds hundreds of print journalists from all over the world. Each is able to watch specific matches, access live statistics at the drop of a hat, and go back through a decade's worth of specific details on the players and their matches.

The on-site infrastructure that powers the Australian Open is stored safely in the server room underneath the arena. IBM staff remarked that these racks resemble only one third of what used to be housed down here, due to the gradual move into IBM's private cloud.

An example of the statistics IBM and Tennis Australia need to have on hand at the drop of a hat to display between sets. Aces, faults, winners, errors and points information are all recorded and displayed in near real time.

The scoreboard in the 17,000-seat Rod Laver Arena is powered by a tiny Lenovo laptop below the stadium.

Chair umpires preside over the games, and record statistics and scores on their personal handheld devices.

The IBM radar operator records the speed of the ball as it flies across the court.

Spidercam is back for this year's television coverage and allows free, suspended movement around the court into virtually any location.

Here, Spidercam hovers above Federer's challenger, Russian player Alexander Kudryavtsev, as he is treated for an injury.

Tennis Australia's CIO talks tech with journalists in Melbourne yesterday.

Luke Hopewell travelled to Melbourne as a guest of IBM.