All England Lawn Tennis Club in London
CNN
–
Pauline Eyre remembers the “extraordinary feeling” that first appeared at Wimbledon, 21.
However, Air was not planning on hitting serves or swiping with the forehand, and did not dream of lifting the trophy in two weeks. She called herself a “pretty bad junior player” and was regularly defeated in the first round of the local tournament.
But under the looming shadow of Centre Court, she reached the pinnacle of her profession as Judge Line. At that moment, Eyre told CNN Sports, “A wonderful feeling of pride…their teams go out as visibly different teams.”
Line Judges have long been the iconic and instantly recognizable aspect of Wimbledon, adorned with Ralph Lauren uniforms, and are often considered the most dressed official in the sports world.
But as of this year, that tradition has ended. Organizers announced in October that electronic calling systems will be introduced at future tournaments and will be abolished with human line judges.
For someone like Air, who called the line at Wimbledon 16 times, this decision marks a sad chapter in the tournament’s nearly 148 years of history.
“At the end of the day, tennis games are sports, sports are about people,” Eyre says. “And I don’t think technology will necessarily make everything better. I don’t think the quality of the line call is improving because the line call has always been better.
“For players who need to deal with adversity, it removes the bits. If you don’t like the call, they can’t argue with technology. …It’s about players who do the best things in adversity. You take humanity from tennis.
Line Judges are “part of the courtroom furniture” at Wimbledon, and their uniforms are “very impressive and very different anywhere else in the world.”
However, the shift to tournament electronic line calls (ELC) is a step further than the rest of the tennis world. The ATP and WTA tours employ a system, just like the Australians and the US opened. Roland Garos is the only Grand Slam convention, using the Human Line Judge for the call of “out” and “disability.”
While Wimbledon’s following this trend may not seem like a particularly fundamental move, Grassouko’s grand slam, full of history and old-fashioned values, is often seen as an entity separate from other tournaments, a world in itself.
The decision was made to ensure “maximum accuracy of the host” and to give players “the same conditions” as most other events on the tour, according to Sally Bolton, CEO of All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).
“(That was probably inevitable,” Andrew Jarrett, a Wimbledon tournament umpire between 2006 and 2019, told CNN Sports. “It is almost certainly correct to go down this route, why, if it is set up correctly, it is considered an improvement because it has proven to be very good and has proven to be better than human vision.
“From a technology perspective, if it exists and it improves, why don’t you use it as a line taken all over the world?”
However, Jarrett acknowledges the “costs on the human side” of the sport, and disrupts young officials who can’t aim to call the line at Wimbledon.
Air indicates the same point. “To want to spend the weekend, you have to make sure you want to refer a kids’ tennis game at a local club, even without Wimbledon’s carrots,” she says. “Why would a 15-year-old tennis player or county tennis player at a club want to take part in the judging process when there’s nothing indeed?”
There are mixed reactions for players. Women’s top seed Arena Sabalenka said she is “50/50” but “probably leaning towards the electronic system.”
But defending women’s champion Barbora Klehikova said “like the old traditional style,” while American star Francis Tiafoe enjoyed the “fanfare” that allowed him to challenge Judge Rhine.
There was also an issue with occasional teeth growing in electronic calls. In their second match between the Madison Keys and Olga Danilovich on Wednesday, the automated system made an unfacilitated “out” call between the points, causing a brief confusion and ripple of laughter from the crowd.
And after the first round match at Court 8, one of the busiest parts of the site, Chinese Yuan Yue said the automated calls are sometimes too quiet to listen.
Observing other tournaments, Eyre believes that electronic calls aren’t always loud. In contrast, line judges are instructed to explicitly yell their phones.
“We had to sell the phone. It’s definitely coming out with a very short, sharp syllable,” Eyre says. “It felt a little strange when they were very calm. It changed the environment and the atmosphere.”
CNN Sports has contacted Wimbledon organizers to comment on the volume of their electronic line calls.
According to Reuters, the tournament pool of around 300 line judges has dropped to 80 at this year’s event and remains deployed as “match assistants” who will intervene in the event of a failure of the ELC system.
Wimbledon first provided electronic hosts in 2007 using Hawkeye cameras, and since then players were able to “challenge” calls by human line judges, potentially overturning decisions against them.
Jarrett served as a referee for the tournament when Hawk-Eye was introduced, but says that during his tenure that ended six years ago, the line umpire was “not on the agenda.”
“There were no real suggestions for replacing the Line’s umpire,” he says. “I think we all knew from the start that we were all starting a journey that could have led to this day, but that wasn’t immediately on the horizon.”
As for Air, she felt that after Hawkeye was introduced, the threat of her old work “was always there.”
“After a while, I think we became more certain that we knew we were doing it right. It was really good,” she says.
But even so, it wasn’t enough to save the line judge work that was destined to be spoken of with the nostalgic charms of sport’s traditionalists.
Like many things in life, the charm of the Wimbledon Line judges is probably only appreciated after they are taken away. That may seem ironic to someone like Air. Recently, she is a stand-up comedian who uses her days with her lines as a source of material. She never saw herself as a popular figure among Wimbledon players.
The line judges believe they had a reputation for being a hanger-on with a failed player.
But I think the real reason they spend so much time on causes is that they think, “We just wanted to be part of what we loved.”
