Wimbledon to fight to keep linesmen

Wimbledon line judges are some of the best dressed in the championship. Credit: Getty Images/Carl De Souza

The All England The All England club faces a battle to keep human linesmen at Wimbledon after it was announced Friday that all ATP tournaments will have electronic line judges by 2025.

As a Grand Slam tournament, Wimbledon is not subject to ATP rules. As Telegraph Sport knows, linesmen will still work on the courts during this year's championship, dressed in the characteristic blue Ralph Lauren blazers. But over time there will likely be increasing pressure on the All England Club to keep up with other developments.

Most players prefer the clinical nature of robots to the possibility of human error, no matter how fruitless. the automated system can sense. And individual bugs will become more and more controversial as they become rarer over the course of the tour, even if Wimbledon still gives players the chance to complete three Hawkeye Challenges in a set.

The position of the All England Club is determined not only by tradition. The penultimate chairman, Philip Brooke, has always been adamant that the existence of human linesmen helps preserve the judging path that ultimately leads to the umpire's seat. This remains the club's view today.

This position was echoed on Friday by a prominent former chair referee who spoke to Telegraph Sport. The ATP's decision will «improve refereeing on the court,» said the official, who asked not to be named, «at the cost of losing thousands of people who are part of the tennis ecosystem. As a result, the quality of chair judges will eventually decline.”

The march of electronic line calls — or ELC for short — began when the all-new ATP Next Gen Finals in Milan featured the 2017 Hawk-Eye Live, with its automatic “fault” and “out” calls.

Since then, ELC has gradually expanded its presence on the professional tour. Last season, only about half of the 45 ATP tournaments on grass and hard courts still had linesmen.

ELC certainly speeds up the pace of the game by removing the need for a challenge system. However, critics argue that an important element of human interaction and drama has been lost.

Perhaps there is no better-known catchphrase in tennis than John McEnroe's «You can't be serious!» This was the start of the famous rant about McEnroe's first round match against Tom Gullickson at Wimbledon in 1981, when one of McEnroe's shots was canceled (unfairly, in his opinion).

At the moment, Hawk-Eye Live is The most popular ELC system for competition, but Foxtenn has proven itself to be a convincing contender and has had particular success on clay courts.

The clay presents a big challenge for automation because the surface of the brick chips is not quite regular. Trials are currently underway to create a reliable technology and until it is satisfied by the tour, professional clay court tournaments will continue to use a full set of officials.