Wimbledon line judges have had their ‘love and passion ripped away’, a chair umpire has revealed, after the All England Club announced plans to replace them with Artificial Intelligence from 2025.
Immaculately dressed officials courtside at SW19 has been one of the quintessential sights of a British summer for 147 years but the tradition will now be consigned to history after Wednesday’s shock decision.
The incumbent Hawk-Eye Live system has been used on the tour for a number of years and was rolled out at a Grand Slam for the first time in the 2020 US Open.
It is an upgrade to the original technology, first introduced at tennis’s premier competition in 2007, which has gifted players the ability to review calls they feel to be incorrect.
The move to automated electronic line calling (ELC) leaves the futures of more than 300 line judges up in the air and chair umpire Richard Ings told the Telegraph it was a ‘sad but inevitable day’.
Wimbledon line judges have had their ‘love and passion ripped away’, a chair umpire revealed
The move to automated electronic line calling (ELC) leaves the futures of more than 300 line judges up in the air
The former head of officiating at the ATP Tour said: ‘Nothing will hold back the tide of AI. And these technologies create gains for sure, but we also lose something on the human side. Will your job be safe from AI?
‘Also, it’s important to remember that the players will still swear and break rackets and question calls. Meanwhile, not-ups and double-hits and touches and crowd noises et cetera will still require humans in a match to make judgment calls that may be right or may be wrong.
‘It’s just a sad day where the question is “Are we gaining more than we are losing?” ‘
The Australian faced the wrath of tennis’s most famous hothead John McEnroe on a number of occasions during the 1980s, a sight which might also soon seem outdated as computers slowly take over the decision-making burden in the sport.
Ings’s home country made the switch to ELC in 2021 and Wimbledon’s departure from more than a century of history means that only the French Open continues to shun the technology.
Organisers are not believed to have come to the decision lightly, with concerns over the breaking of Wimbledon’s staunch tradition as well as the effective dismissal of dozens of line judges coming into consideration.
The competition employs more than 300 on-court officials each year to cover more than 650 matches across the fortnight.
The employees, aged between 18 and 80, work on a one-hour-on and one-hour-off basis and operate as a team.
They are generally from the UK and, with a few elite exceptions, take on the work as a part-time gig along with a regular job. The officials are paid up to £180 a day.
Paired with Queen’s Club’s decision to do the same, the switch to ELC has added to mounting concerns about the pathway of officiating in this country after Australian tennis saw a decline in the number of umpires and line judges after the Australian Open brought in the technology three years ago.
Plainly, it is feared that smaller tournaments, unable to cough up £100,000-per-court for ELC, will struggle to attract officials without the end goal of a coveted spot on Centre at Wimbledon.
The Lawn Tennis Association claimed in a statement that it was working alongside the Association of British Tennis Officials to ‘develop a new joint strategy that will ensure officials can be retained within the sport.’
The Hawk-Eye Live system has been used on the tour for a number of years
The competition employs more than 300 on-court officials each year to cover more than 650 matches
Organisers are not believed to have come to the decision lightly, with concerns over the effective dismissal of dozens of line judges coming into consideration
Some things will remain the same, however, with the chair umpire continuing to lead the officiating team
The existing reviews system will also now be ditched as automated voice calls can now make a decision within a tenth of a second after a ball lands out.
Several cameras will be able to track the ball’s flight throughout the rally as an additional video operator watches on in a separate room away from the court.
Some things will remain the same, however, with the chair umpire continuing to lead the officiating team out in the heart of the action, but the edges of the court will take on a decidedly quieter feel from 2025.