Fans attending the US Open at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, now have myriad ways of following Rafael Nadal, Melanie Oudin, Venus Williams and the rest of professional tennis' elite, whether they're sitting in Arthur Ashe Stadium or checking in from their work computer.

Once again, the flagship feature is IBM's live video stream (available from USOpen.org) that draws on all three broadcast partners (CBS, ESPN and the Tennis Channel). From there, viewers can overlay match data, other in-progress scores, and even pull up picture-in-picture of another match going on concurrently.

"The simplicity of that video-stream design combined with the marrying of the data about the match is something we hope makes the experience more powerful," IBM's John Kent told Wired.com. In 2009, there were under 14 million streams accessed over USOpen.org, adding up to more than 2.5 million hours of coverage from 157 matches over two weeks.

This year, PointStream is the big new feature. Coupled with SlamTracker, which allows users to check in graphically on matches in progress, PointStream drills down on in-match data in a heavily visual way, using a central, tennis ball-esque design and various colors and indicators - triangles indicate break points, open triangles show missed break-point chances, and so on - to relay information about a given point at any moment in a match. (It's also eerily familiar to those who swear by their Polar Clock screensaver.) PointStream debuts during tonight's first-round matches.

"We're expecting it will engage the fans a bit more and allow them to get some more insight into what is driving some of the best players' performances," Kent said.

IBM has been on site at the US Open for almost 10 days now, working to make sure the core online infrastructure is in place for what they expect will be an increase in traffic over last year, which was itself a 47 percent increase over 2008's numbers. With a crew of some 18 engineers and technicians on hand, PointStream should provide a significant upgrade over graphical representations of tennis in the past. In this example, you get a glimpse of an entire match, with colors indicating who won each point.

Last year, IBM introduced a specialized iPhone app that was downloaded some 500,000 times during the tournament. For 2010, many of the same features - including video highlights, live radio broadcasts and real-time scoring - have returned. But this year, the iPhone app will also allow you a dip into the world of augmented reality.

Reminiscent of Bionic Eye, the app's "Around Me" feature allows fans who are on the NTC grounds to point their camera at their surroundings and pull up data about what matches are occurring nearby, where the concessions are, and even where to find the nearest first aid station.

And yet, for all these upgrades, there will be no optimized iPad app for the US Open this year, although video streams will be viewable via mobile browsing through an HTML5 conversion. IBM's Kent says that a dedicated iPad app may be in the offing for future tournaments.

"To be honest, that's one of the big questions out there, not just for the US Open but the other properties we handle," Kent said. "Our mindset has been that if you're going to build an app - whether for the iPhone, iPad or anything - there has be a differentiated experience for that, versus just getting it over the browser."

Follow us on Twitter at @erikmal and @wiredplaybook and on Facebook.