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.
After rallying with the Acemate, it gets a thumbs-up from me. Matt Elliott/CNET
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.
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