--- title: "This Video of a Humanoid Robot Playing Tennis Is Extremely Impressive" description: "Chinese AI robotics company Galbot has designed software that teaches a Unitree G1 humanoid robot how to play tennis." date: "2026-03-16" modified: "2026-03-16" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/video-humanoid-robot-playing-tennis" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" --- # This Video of a Humanoid Robot Playing Tennis Is Extremely Impressive ![Chinese AI robotics company Galbot has designed software that teaches a Unitree G1 humanoid robot how to playing tennis.]() *Galbot* The excitement surrounding recent strides in humanoid robotics is palpable. They're being used to [assemble electric cars](), [sort packages](), and [perform carefully choreographed martial arts]() on stage. Bipedal robots are even being [sent to the frontlines]() of the Ukraine-Russia war and [getting in trouble after startling old ladies]() on the street. Sports are also no match for the agile automatons, from [shooting hoops]() to live [kickboxing matches]() in front of a crowd. Now, Chinese AI robotics company Galbot has designed software that teaches a Galbot G1 humanoid robot how to perform a veritable feat: effectively playing tennis, allowing it to keep its own in a match-up against a human engineer. A video the company [posted to social media]() shows the white robot holding up what appears to be an unmodified tennis racket, which it uses to easily return the ball by shuffling across the court. It's yet another impressive demonstration of how far the tech has come — but whether the robot will be able to keep up with the likes of Novak Djokovic or Serena Williams any time soon remains to be seen, given the lighthanded volleys from the human engineers. "For the first time, a humanoid robot can sustain high-dynamic, long-horizon tennis rallies with millisecond-level reactions, precise ball striking, and natural whole-body motion," Galbot claimed in its post. "This marks a leap from mechanical motion imitation to intelligent, decision-driven athletic interaction." https://twitter.com/GalbotRobotics/status/2033447831705461102 To teach their robot how to play tennis, the company's engineers built a system that had to rely on "imperfect human motion data" that consists "only of motion fragments that capture the primitive skills used when playing tennis rather than precise and complete human-tennis motion sequences from real-world tennis matches," according to a [yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper](). "Our key insight is that, despite being imperfect, such quasi-realistic data still provide priors about human primitive skills in tennis scenarios," they found. "With further correction and composition, we learn a humanoid policy that can consistently strike incoming balls under a wide range of conditions and return them to target locations, while preserving natural motion styles." The engineers argue that the system could have uses beyond tennis as well. "Although this work primarily focuses on the tennis return task, the proposed framework has the potential to generalize to a broader range of tasks where complete and high-quality human motion data are unavailable," they concluded. **More on humanoid robots:** [*Company Testing Humanoid Robot Soldiers on Frontlines of Ukraine*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()