Better Than a Ball Machine: I Checked Out 2 Tennis Robots and Now Want One

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For most tennis fans, the year doesn't begin until next week, which is the start of the Australian Open. For me, however, the tennis calendar started last week in Las Vegas. After running around for most of the week at CES 2026 in search of the coolest laptops and latest laptop processors in my role as CNET's lead laptop editor, I found some time during my last day in Las Vegas to indulge my favorite hobby and was able to check out a pair of tennis robots on the show floor.

Generally speaking, I'm mezza mezza on AI robots. I don't need a robot to mow my lawn, fold my laundry, feed my pet or join me in bed. But an AI robot that might improve my backhand? You've got my attention.

Rallying with Acemate

My first robot stop was Acemate's booth, where it had its tennis robot rolling back and forth on a mini tennis court opposite a rotating cast of CES attendees. I waited my turn in line, stepped into the court and grabbed a racket to rally with the Acemate Tennis Robot.

This is not a humanoid robot that moves like Roger Federer, crushes topspin forehands like Rafael Nadal, rips backhands like Coco Gauff or bombs serves like Ben Shelton. The Acemate Tennis Robot has no arms or legs and doesn't use a racket to rally with you. Instead, it looks like a ball machine on wheels with a big net on top. But it's far from an ordinary ball machine.

CNET editor Matt Elliott give a thumbs-up at the Acemate tennis robot booth at CES 2026

The wheels are used to race around its side of the court, and the big net is used to catch the balls you hit toward it. With two 4K binocular cameras, the Acemate can track the balls coming off your racket to move itself in front of your shots to catch them in its net. And once it catches one of your shots, it spits out the next ball to you, which mimics playing against a human opponent.

In my time on the court, the Acemate moved surprisingly fast and was impressively accurate in reading the balls coming off my racket in order to get in front of them and keep the rally going. And this was on a mini court that was only a small fraction of the size of an actual tennis court. Like any tennis player, I'd imagine it's even better when given more time and space between shots.

Acemate says its robot can move up to 5 meters per second, which is more than 16 feet per second. I'm pretty sure that's faster than I can move on a tennis court. And with four Mecanum wheels, it can move in any direction to get to your shot. It will likely have trouble with the pace generated by higher-level players, but for anyone playing at a USTA 3.5 level or lower, I think the Acemate will be able to keep up and keep rallies going.

I was also impressed with the timing between catching a ball in its net and firing the next ball back at me during my demo. There was no awkward delay between both of those actions that would ruin the fluid feel of a tennis rally. And it didn't release the next ball too early that would speed up play to the point of it feeling artificial. The Acemate doesn't look human, but the pace at which it plays feels very natural.

The two cameras aren't just tracking the ball to keep a rally going. They are also capturing data about the shots you are hitting -- speed, spin depth, placement and height over the net -- to give you real-time feedback so you can adjust your shot making. The cameras also let the Acemate feed you calls with great accuracy. It divides your half of the court into 25 zones so you can target specific shots to practice.

Screenshot of the Acemate app. The writer's custom Djoker Defense drill is listed first in the list of drills.

If Acemate sends me a robot to test, I would set it to hit nothing but balls in zones 16, 17, 21 and 22 so I could work on my backhand for my first training session. You can customize different drills using the Acemate app. I've already got one set up that I'm calling the Djoker Defense drill that will run me from side to side to defend each corner like the best to ever do it, Novak Djokovic.

In addition to setting the Acemate to target specific areas of the court, you can set it to feed balls to you with topspin or backspin so you can work returning both types of spin. And you can adjust how high over the net it feeds you the ball, including a drill where the Acemate will hit lobs so you can practice your overhead smash, a shot no one ever practices enough.

It looks like there's only one speed in Rally mode, but if you change to Ball Machine mode where the robot remains stationary, you can adjust the speed at which it hits balls at you -- up to 60 miles per hour. It also has a ball boy mode where you can place the Acemate near you and have it gently feed you balls so you can stand on the baseline and practice serve after serve. Its cameras understand gestures so you can tell it to feed you a ball with a wave of your hand.

Acemate Tennis Robot sits at the baseline of a tennis court

The Acemate Tennis Robot will start shipping later this month for an introductory price of $1,599. (The full retail price is listed as $2,499.) A pickleball version is expected to follow in a month or two. The Acemate Tennis Robot comes with a removable battery, portable charger and one-year warranty. The company estimates that the battery lasts two hours, and you can buy a second battery for $99.

Lumistar for tennis and basketball training

My next stop in search of a robot tennis partner was Lumistar's booth, where it had both tennis and basketball robots on display -- although the company calls them AI training systems and not robots, probably because both are stationary.

A front view of the Lumistar's Carry basketball robot

Its basketball robot, Carry, was the headliner, where CES attendees were able to take turns putting up a few shots and having it feed the ball back to you. Its cameras understand gestures so you can call for the ball, and its AI brains will analyze not only your makes and misses but also your shooting form. The big collection net that surrounds the hoop and backboard was a bit distracting, but I'd probably get used to it if it was able to correct my form so that I can stop missing jumpers to the right as the ball slides off the pinky side of my hand.

As a retired pickup hoops player and current tennis obsessive, I was more interested in the Tero, its tennis AI training system. There wasn't enough room in the Lumistar booth to hit with the Tero, but what I learned about it was enough to pique my interest.

It's on wheels, but the wheels are only there to help you transport the Tero to the court. Once on court, the Tero remains stationary. (I was told that a future version will move around the court for a more human-like feel, where balls are coming back at you from different angles.) Although it stays rooted in place, the Tero has a triple-axis gimbal mechanism with dual motors to feed balls to all areas of the court with a variety of trajectories and spins.

With dual 4K cameras and an AI chip inside, the Tero understands your position on the court and where your shots are going to feed the next ball to the right spot instead of simply relying on a fixed pattern like a standard ball machine. Helping it keep track of your location and also how hard you swing is a wristband positioning device -- it looks like an Apple Watch knockoff on a sweat band -- you wear while hitting with the Tero. It has different modes so your training doesn't get stale, and it tracks your shots to create reports of each training session.

Lumistar will have two models of its tennis robot starting in March. The baseline Tero will sell for around $1,000, and the Tero Pro that includes the dual cameras and three additional AI training modes will cost around $2,000. The Carry basketball robot will cost between $3,000 and $4,000 and will launch on Kickstarter sometime in Q2.

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