Asics Expands Tennis Footwear Research And Product Updates Coming

BusinessSportsMoneyAsics Expands Tennis Footwear Research And Product Updates ComingByTim Newcomb,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Tim Newcomb covers tennis gear/business, stadiums and shoe tech.Follow AuthorJun 16, 2026, 03:00am EDTA tennis court loaded with technology, including force plates, inside the Asics an HumanFab collaboration as part of ISS Europe.Albin DurandWhen Asics wanted to mine the movement insights of sponsored Swiss tennis star Belinda Bencic, the Japanese-based company didn’t have to find a time for her to travel to Kobe, Japan, and visit the company’s headquarters and main Institute of Sport Science. Instead, Bencic traveled a short distance to France, visiting Asics’ newly opened ISS Europe, complete with a focus on tennis. In a new partnership with HumanFab, Asics will use the company’s technology—a tennis court complete with force plates and data mining capabilities befitting one of the sport’s largest footwear creators—to help continue Asics’ growth in tennis, the brand’s second-largest focus. “Tennis is important,” Mitsuyuki Tominaga, Asics president and CEO, tells me. “It is growing.” By partnering with HumanFab, Tominaga says to expect a Kaizen-type expression in future product, with incremental improvements with each new shoe, adding to future generations of Asics tennis footwear. Movement testing combines with other data tracking as part of Ascis' new ISS Europe. AsicsYuhi Tanigaki, Asics global product manager of tennis footwear, tells me he’s excited to not only have accessibility to top-flight Asics athletes but also the actionable data he gets from ISS Europe. “The data and results we can get is well-written and detailed,” he says about working with HumanFab, adding that while Asics has plenty of data about how footwear responds, they can now merge that with a new perspective that encompasses footwear, movement and the body’s reaction, all scientifically categorized. “It is nice...