Serena Open 15
Serena Williams served to Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia during their match at the U.S. Open in New York, on Aug. 31, 2015. Reuters

The U.S. Open Tennis Championships are underway in Queens, New York, and the world is watching to see if Serena Williams will cap off her amazing year with a calendar grand slam. She's won all three majors and is the favorite to win the Open, while Novak Djokovic is favored to win the men's title. As the matches unfold on court, IBM is busy tracking every serve and forehand and delivering real-time data insights that go beyond keeping score.

IBM's partnership with the U.S. Open has led to a flood of interesting data. Statisticians and radar are tracking each game while scores are inputted electronically by the chair umpire. All of this adds up to an enhanced experience for fans and players. "Minutes after they finish playing, [players] receive a USB key loaded with the data from their match that helps players and coaches analyze their performance," Noah Syken, IBM vice president, global sponsorships, said in a statement.

The numbers show how important some stats are in determining the outcome of a match. Minimizing unforced errors will greatly increase the odds of winning, but a great first-serve win percentage may not guarantee success. Filip Krajinovic lost in the second round to David Ferrer despite winning 75 percent of his first serves. Ferrer had a higher first-serve win percentage (85 percent) and took the match in straight sets. IBM's SlamTracker adds predictive "Keys to the Match" based on millions of data points.

With so much data, IBM can have some fun with the information it's collecting. For one thing, IBM previously collaborated with LCD Soundsystem founder James Murphy to create music with tennis data. "James Murphy used the IBM Cloud and a custom-built algorithm to turn data points (covering serve speed, number of aces, and more) from more than 400 hours of tennis play into music cues, generating real-time soundtracks for each match," IBM wrote. The music generated is available to the public via SoundCloud.