It will soon be the end of an era at Wimbledon. From 2025, the All England Club has announced that the services of line judges, who ringed the court and were responsible for crying ‘out’ and ‘fault’ on serves, will be dispensed with. From then on, all line calls will be decided entirely by the Hawkeye electronic line calling system (ELC). The move comes in the wake of the Association of Tennis Professionals’ (ATP’s) decision to adopt ELC across the men’s tour from 2025, and is thus perfectly logical. But it is not without controversy, and it will not please everybody.
There is something slightly sinister about this takeover by Hawkeye
Wimbledon’s chief executive, Sally Bolton, said that the plan was made after a ‘significant period of consideration and consultation’ and stressed that the technology was ‘robust’. She insisted that it is the right time for a move that will align Wimbledon with ‘a number of other events on the tour’. The technology is already in use at the US and Australian Opens, and with Wimbledon signing on, that just leaves the French Open to complete the Grand Slam.
It is a bit sad, though. The line judges, who always to me suggested, for the men, Billy Bunter-ish characters and for the women, Mary Poppins without the carpet bag, added to the pageantry of Wimbledon, giving proceedings a quaint 1950s feel. Wimbledon was different, with its royal patronage, strawberries and cream, celeb-spotting on Number One Court, and slightly anachronistic rituals and etiquette – it had the extra-sporting appeal of a national event. A celebrity garden party – with a bit of racquet sport on the side.
The judges added a distinctly human touch to proceedings. It was especially amusing to contrast those that were clearly out of shape with the gaunt, rake-thin, robotic tennis automatons whose fates they had some say in deciding. It was a reminder, much needed in the over-serious elite strata of sport, that what we were watching was just a game, just two (or four) young people knocking a ball over a net, that mistakes happen – and so what? Sport only really matters if you think it matters.
One wonders what will happen next. There is something slightly sinister about this takeover by Hawkeye, reminiscent vaguely of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the computer Hal starts to eliminate members of the crew. Will Hawkeye turn its laser gaze on umpires next? And will the ball boys and girls be replaced by some technological ball-retrieval wizardry too? How about AI-automated commentators? These aren’t cheerful thoughts.
Cynics might also suggest that by aligning itself with the international tennis authorities on the issue of ELC, Wimbledon will go some way towards undoing the damage caused by its unwise (some – me, for example – would say disgraceful) decision to exclude Russian and Belarusian players from the tournament in 2022. The move was not endorsed by the wider tennis community and led to the tournament losing its ranking points. It is also worth noting that the elimination of the roughly 300 line judges Wimbledon recruits each year will save a considerable amount of money, needed by the club as it prepares for its ambitious expansion plans. Thirty-nine new tennis courts are planned and an 8,000-seat venue with a covered roof.
Players are broadly thought to be supportive of the move to ELC. Hawkeye is, after all, ‘serious’ – it is believed to operate with an average error of 3.6mm, which is equivalent to the fluff on the ball. This is far better than even a well-trained official squinting in the sun through sweat-sodden eyes could possibly manage.
Concerns about the technology (Sally Bolton’s ‘robust’ comment did bring the Post Office’s defence of the Horizon system to mind) are also surely misplaced. There has been the very occasional malfunction since it was introduced nearly two decades ago in the wake of human errors in the Serena Williams-Jennifer Capriati US Open quarter-final in 2004 (just as Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ against Germany in the 2010 World Cup proved the accelerant for VAR). But, unlike VAR, some would say, ELC has proved generally reliable. It makes for more accurate and swifter decisions, and fewer on-court tantrums or post-match controversy.
Wimbledon’s future looks secure, then, and the farewell to line judges is a shame but probably inevitable. Like the practice of curtseying to the Royal Box, or the use of ‘Miss or Mrs’ for female players, those hardworking and unsung adjudicators have found themselves redundant in the modern age.
Let’s hope, though, that in its rush to embrace modernity and maximise its income, Wimbledon doesn’t jettison everything that made it just a little bit more than another elite tennis tournament.
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