On CRAN · v0.1.0
An R package that turns public information about women’s tennis into tables for exploration, integration and visualisation. My work covers extraction, data structuring and documentation of the interface.
The problem
The Women’s Tennis Association website brings together biographies, career records, matches and rankings. This information is designed for a browser; using it in an analysis requires handling dynamic page loading and converting the content into a consistent structure.
matchpointR makes that step easier for analysts and R users. It returns data frames that can feed an analysis or visualisation workflow.
The solution
The package provides functions to retrieve player biographies, singles and doubles career summaries, match histories, rankings and aggregate statistics. The result is a reusable interface for tasks that would otherwise require a dedicated scraper.
Install it from R:
install.packages("matchpointR")The getting-started documentation covers usage examples and runtime requirements.
Development decisions
Pages that rely on JavaScript are rendered using chromote and a headless Chrome session. Where available, structured schema.org JSON-LD data takes priority over CSS selectors, reducing dependence on the visual presentation of the website.
Separating acquisition from content parsing allows the parsers to be reviewed independently. Documentation is published with pkgdown, and the repository includes package checks through continuous integration.
Outcome and limits
Version 0.1.0 was published on CRAN on 28 April 2026. The package, manual and source code are available to inspect and use.
The data still depends on an external source: a WTA website change can affect extraction even when parser tests pass. Rankings reflect the time of retrieval; comparisons across periods should retain the retrieval date and a copy of the data. Use must respect the source’s terms and avoid unnecessary request volumes.