Sometimes progress registers simply as absence, and so it was on the opening day of Wimbledon this year when the pursuit of greater accuracy led to the disappearance of the tournament’s famous line judges.
Electronic line calls are now in operation in SW19, bringing the championships into line with the grand slam tournaments in Melbourne and New York and also the ATP Tour. The French Open still uses line judges. But the shift to camera‑based, AI‑enhanced decision-making cuts deeper at Wimbledon, where up to 300 line judges have been a colourful part of the tournament’s ensemble cast for the past 147 years.
With protests outside the gates (albeit with tongue in cheek) and ambivalence among fans, there were also unexpected reactions from players to the changes. In the men’s draw, Carlos Alcaraz and his first‑round opponent Fabio Fognini were to be seen questioning the decision of the new system, apparently unaware that the ability to challenge a call is another tradition now consigned to the past.
In the women’s draw, meanwhile, the Chinese player Yuan Yue complained the new system was too quiet for her to hear its decision. “The voice, I cannot really hear it, it is a bit too low,” she said. “So I asked the referee can you [turn] it up a little bit. He said he cannot. He said he will try to let us know [the call] because he has a machine that can look it up. I don’t really mind, I just want to hear it clearly. [The umpire’s] voice is a lot more loud than the automatic one so we can hear that clear. Other tournaments don’t really have this problem.”
The electronic line-call system was developed by Hawk-Eye and uses AI to analyse footage from up to 18 cameras tracking the progress of the ball across the court. If a serve is wide, or a forehand too long, manufacturers say the software will issue a notification within a tenth of a second. In a unique Wimbledon twist, those calls are then vocalised using recordings of the voices of staff from the All England Club.
That can lead to an unusual experience in watching the play, or even competing in it. On court 18 during Cameron Norrie’s first-round match against Roberto Bautista Agut, any declaration of “fault” used the voice of a (forceful) ballboy, whereas “out” calls were announced in the voices of adults, both male and female. In the lower courts there was also the sense of disembodied calls floating between matches. Britain’s Sonay Kartal lost a point at the Australian Open in January after she reacted to a call from a different court. Following her three-set victory against Jelena Ostapenko, however, she declared the conditions “perfectly fine”, though she echoed Yuan’s concerns.
“I hit a few shots that were at a pretty big moment and the crowd kind of went nuts, so maybe I lost it a bit in that,” she said.
Sally Bolton, the chief executive of the All England Club, said the new system attempts to strike a typical balance between modernity and tradition. “For us, it was time to make that change,” she said. “It’s not a money‑saving exercise, the technology investment we’ve had to make to deliver electronic line calling is not insignificant. It’s about evolving the tournament and making sure that we’re providing the most effective possible line calling.
“The line judges have been such an important part of the championships for so many years, and we obviously hugely appreciate the service that they’ve provided. Quite a few of them, around 80, are still with us as match assistants in a new role, supporting the chair umpire.”
Verdicts from the spectators were largely sceptical. Though some had missed the changes altogether, many were grateful for the continued use of animated graphics on tight line calls, now known as “close calls”, despite the end of the challenge system. Others, however, missed the simple pleasure of watching someone standing stock still at the back of a court, their eyes focused determinedly on a single point.
“You’re essentially removing the history and replacing it with a slightly robotic animated voice. It’s all a bit numbing,” said James from Ipswich, taking advantage of the shade underneath Centre Court mid-afternoon. “Everything is getting more accurate, but we’re losing the human drama. I miss the theatre of seeing someone staring down the line like that.”
Less nuanced views were also available. The deputy leader of Reform, Richard Tice, was up posting about electronic line calls at 6.30am on Monday and he was not happy. “We want our country back. We want Wimbledon line judges back. Enough is enough,” he wrote on X.
