At a Glance:
Project Metrics
| Customer: | German Tennis Federation (DTB) |
| Period: | August 2025 - February 1, 2026 |
| Budget: | Four-figure |
| Team: | 2 People |
| Industry: | Sports Associations, Digital Platforms |
| Area of Application: | Self-Service and Knowledge Management in Sports |
Technologies
Serving Up Digital Self-Service for Tennis
Tennis is a sport of fast rallies – and that's exactly what many users expect from digital services today: quick answers to their questions. With "Smashy," the AI-powered chatbot on tennis.de, a new service channel has been created that makes information accessible through dialogue and supports the tennis community digitally around the clock.
This is not our first chatbot project. Rather, it's a follow-up initiative. Smashy is based on the digital assistant we developed for the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and the State Sports Federation of North Rhine-Westphalia on their sports club portal vibss.de. As mentioned in the DOSB reference, the vision was a rollout to other sports clubs and associations – and the DTB was the first to step onto the court with tennis.de.
Unlike VIBSS, tennis.de addresses the general public: players of all performance levels, coaches, club officials, parents, fans, and those interested in the sport. Correspondingly diverse are the questions – from performance levels and rankings to licenses and subscriptions, training programs, tournament rules, or basic tennis regulations. With up to 300,000 monthly users and 250 million website visits per year, the platform is the central digital hub for German tennis. Traditional service channels quickly reach their limits with approximately 20,000 service requests annually resulting from these high user numbers. The need for scalable, digital self-service was significant.
Against this background, Smashy was designed as a digital assistant that is constantly available and provides users with easy access to tennis.de content. Instead of clicking through site structures, questions about simple and complex topics can be asked directly in the chat. The assistant summarizes answers comprehensibly and refers to the underlying sources on tennis.de. This way, information authority remains with the platform's content, while access to it is significantly simplified.
How the AI Approach Works
Technologically, Smashy is based on a RAG system (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). Simply put, the chatbot works like a very fast digital librarian. When a question is asked, it systematically searches existing content such as web pages, FAQs, PDFs, and other documents. Smashy identifies relevant text passages and formulates an answer from them. At the same time, it shows which sources it relies on.
The important principle here is: The chatbot doesn't automatically "know" everything about tennis. It doesn't draw on secret expert knowledge, but rather on the content provided to it. For specialized questions, it depends on the quality and currency of the available documents. This concept ensures transparency and reduces the risk of fabricated answers. Users can verify the cited sources themselves and delve deeper if needed.
From Single Solution to Platform Strategy
A special feature of the project lies in its strategic orientation beyond the main page. tennis.de is not just a single portal, but part of a growing digital ecosystem in German tennis. Areas for the national federation as well as regional associations are also connected under the same domain. This is where the multi-tenant capability of the chatbot system comes in.
The vision is for all regional associations under tennis.de to be integrated, each able to use their own chatbot instances with their own knowledge base. An association can thus integrate its specific content without it being mixed with other associations. At the same time, central content from tennis.de can be shared as needed. This creates a scalable system that can accommodate both central information and regional specifics.
For users, this means that in the future they can ask their question wherever they are – whether on the main page or on an association subpage – and receive contextually relevant answers. For organizations, it means a unified technical foundation that can be centrally operated and further developed.
Project Challenges
A project of this scale combines technological, organizational, and communication challenges:
Extensive Data Foundation
The biggest challenge lay less in the pure chatbot technology than in the structure and volume of content. Hundreds of subpages, extensive FAQ sections, and numerous documents must be prepared so that they are meaningfully machine-searchable. Different writing styles, evolved page structures, and sometimes complex rule systems – such as for rankings or licenses – require clean content preparation.
Clear Communication
Added to this is expectation management: A chatbot is strong in answering informational questions but doesn't automatically replace functional searches or booking systems. Clear instructions and transparent communication with users are therefore an important part of the concept.
Scalability
Scalability also played a central role. For heavily frequented platforms, the infrastructure must be able to handle traffic spikes without response times suffering. The deployment was therefore designed to allow flexible scaling.
The Result: Rally Against Service Backlogs
With Smashy's launch in February 2026, a new access channel to tennis.de content was created. Recurring questions can be answered directly in chat, regardless of opening hours or service times. This relieves traditional support channels and helps users reach their goals faster.
At the same time, the system serves as a learning platform: From anonymized user behavior, it can be identified which topics are particularly frequently requested. These insights can in turn feed into the further development of the website and information offerings. The chatbot thus becomes not just a service tool, but also a sensor for user needs.
The accessible, multilingual AI chatbot responds at any time, quickly and reliably to various questions about tennis and sports, but also recognizes contextually inappropriate questions. To further support users, the digital assistant formulates suitable follow-up questions.
Smashy button on the bottom left of tennis.de
Smashy chat on the bottom left of tennis.de
Try Smashy on tennis.de
The collaboration with Helm & Walter was exceptionally smooth and solution-oriented at all times. I was particularly impressed by the quick response to individual requirements and the reliable, transparent coordination throughout the entire project. We would like to thank you for the implementation so far and look forward to the next steps in connecting our regional associations to the chatbot.
Daniel Jacob, Head of Digitalization & Innovation
Team and Implementation
Bernd Helm
Bernd Helm is our main point of contact for chatbots. In this project, he was responsible for the technical architecture of the solution, the integration with the web services of tennis.de and the German Tennis Federation, as well as Smashy's deployment. He also implemented the RAG pipeline based on our in-house technology and the scaling concept for multi-tenant operations.
Tobias Friedrich
Mr. Friedrich, as chatbot developer, was primarily responsible for support around the chatbot, technical integration, and further development of data connectivity. He also oversaw the stabilization of the knowledge pipeline.
The relatively low deployment effort combined with high impact shows how existing AI components can be meaningfully transferred to new contexts when architecture and objectives are clearly defined.
Outlook: Game Plan for the Future
Smashy is intended as a long-term component of tennis.de's digital strategy. With each additional connected association, the system's benefit grows. In perspective, a nationwide, dialogue-based information network for German tennis can emerge that intelligently connects central and regional content.
The project shows how AI can be deployed in sports where it creates real added value – not as an end in itself, but as a service for people. Or to put it in tennis terms: a well-placed serve that can develop into a long, successful rally.
With saxony.ai, we offer our own products as AI solutions in addition to IT services. The use cases for our chatbot solutions alone range from self-service for websites to AI as a knowledge manager or copilot for data analysis. But AI is more than just chatbots! We offer digital twins, predictive maintenance, and other smart solutions. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
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