ATP Finals in Turin: 'Connect Me Too' Brings Real-Time Audio Description for Blind Fans
At the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, from November 15 to 22, blind and visually impaired spectators will be able to follow matches through 'Connect Me Too', the real-time audio description service by CMT Translations.
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At the Nitto ATP Finals, held from November 15 to 22 at the Inalpi Arena in Turin, 'Connect Me Too' makes its debut, a real-time audio description service designed for blind and visually impaired spectators. The service is developed by CMT Translations: fans in the stands download an app, register, select the session their ticket belongs to and listen to a highly descriptive commentary through a pair of earphones. The aim is to describe not only the ball's flight and the score, but also the movement on court and the arena's atmosphere. The project manager, Tony D'Angelo, warns that tennis is the hardest sport to describe, because between rallies there is no room for words.
The Nitto ATP Finals take a step forward on accessibility, according to Ubitennis: the tournament is played on the indoor hard courts of the Inalpi Arena in Turin from November 15 to 22, and for the first time blind and visually impaired spectators will be able to follow matches thanks to 'Connect Me Too', the audio description service developed by CMT Translations. It is the outlet describing the debut, and it also explains how the service is built around a specific difficulty of this sport: during a rally there is absolute silence, and the narrator has to fill that space without covering the sounds of the court.
The mechanism described by Ubitennis is designed to work from the stands. Over 5G and 4G networks, spectators download the 'Connect Me Too' app for free on Android and iOS, register, select the event and enter the code of the session printed on their ticket, then put on earphones. The commentary is handled by professionals trained for the task: according to the outlet, they describe not only the ball's trajectory and the score, but also the players' movement across the blue court, their facial expressions, their gestures of tension or celebration, and the atmosphere of the arena.
Explaining the technical challenge is Tony D'Angelo, project manager for CMT Translations. "Tennis is the hardest challenge for anyone who has to narrate it," he said: "extremely fast pace, very short pauses, no room for useless words." His words describe the constraint of a service that must update in real time without overlapping the sound of the ball. According to Ubitennis, the same technology has already accompanied top-level events in football, from national teams to Serie A and Serie B clubs, in rugby, basketball and winter sports, as well as opera at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.
A note on how to read it: the claim that this is a first of its kind for the tournament is the outlet's, and it refers to the service's debut. The source does not say how many hours of service are planned, nor how many people intend to use it, and it does not report a statement from the organisers alongside the one from CMT Translations. For tennis followers, the tournament starts on November 15; the previous day of sport is summarised in this piece on the Dakar Youth Olympics, while the country's accounts are covered in this article on the Bank of Italy hearing.