It was probably inevitable.
The venerable Wimbledon tennis tournament, one of four “Grand Slams” in tennis, will be replacing line judges at next year’s championships. They will be replaced by line-calling powered by artificial intelligence, the All England Club confirmed last week.
The tournament — famous for clinging to tradition — has now bowed to technology. For the 147 years the championships have taken place, “out” calls have been made by human beings. The installation of automated electronic line-calling will be rolled out across all 18 courts next year.
While tradition-bound Wimbledon has kept some of its more archaic rules and requirements over the years (players must still wear white outfits), the tournament has slowly modernized over the years. For example, it used white tennis balls until 1986 (almost every other tournament and event had switched to the more visible yellow balls well over a decade prior). It only recently added a roof to Centre Court (allowing for matches to be played in all weather conditions). And in recent years, the All England Club allowed for the “Hawk-Eye Live system” to be used on court.
The Hawk-eye Live system is the artificial intelligence that has been in use at the U.S. Open since 2020, as well as other major tournament and Tour events. This has allowed for the elimination of (sometime fallible) human beings from making in or out calls on the court. While other tournaments dispensed with the linespersons entirely, Wimbledon had still retained them. What resulted was the ability for players to “challenge” calls on court, using the Hawk-eye technology to confirm (or overrule) calls made by linespersons.
That was similar to other sports, where plays can be challenged by using video replays, adding a certain amount of suspense while the rewiews are underway (they also have a tendency to slow games down and in some aspects, can be momentum-shifting). What the new AI system at Wimbledon will do is to make “out” calls automatically (using an AI-generated human voice), and players can no longer challenge human-made calls.
AI technology isn’t new (but it is increasingly being used in sports). In fact, MLB will be experimenting with using “Robot Umps”, and may possibly be using them for Spring Training games in 2025.
But the biggest loss for Wimbledon is not just the linespersons — one of Wimbledon’s more annoying endearing quirks had been to outfit the line judges in anachronistic semi-formal attire, although the linespersons attire had become slightly less formal of late.
“The decision to introduce Live Electronic Line Calling at The Championships was made following a significant period of consideration and consultation,” Sally Bolton, CEO of the All England Club, said. “Having reviewed the results of the testing undertaken at The Championships this year, we consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating. For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour.”
What are your thoughts? Should we be grateful that Wimbledon is finally joining the rest of the tennis world in adopting technology that will make for a (hopefully) perfectly called game? Or, do you view line judges a bit like umpires in baseball — fallible, but a part of the game? AI technology is here to stay. Should we be embracing it and using it to replace human made calls (in all sports), or are those all just “part of the game” — so long as video replay exists to confirm (or overrule) a human call, ensuring a “correct” outcome, should we keep those officials an umpires in their current capacities?
Discuss.
I’ve seen the electronic line calling at the US Open this year and it was very effective: there was no delay, players and the audience knew immediately if a ball was in or out. Close plays were shown on a replay on the boards too.
When reading about how the US Open implemented the automated calls I learned that various linespeople recorded their “out” and “fault” calls, primarily those who were retiring from their roles. So in this respect there’s still a “human” touch to the technology. When watching in person, obvious out calls were called with a standard “out!” call but closer plays had a more emphatic “OUT!!” Wonder if Wimbledon will offer their longest tenured linespeople this privilege too.
All for it. Why not get it right. And MLB should go to it.
I played tennis in high school and college, where many times the players called it. I remember questioning a competitor on one of his out calls, and he said…”I think it was out.” I told him…”If you think it was out, then it’s in and you can’t call it out. You can only call it out if you’re sure it was out.”
Kinda torn with baseball having robot umps since catchers framing the pitch is a large part of the game. However I also understand wanting to get the call “right”. I do like some of the human element of officiating in sports tho. I like having the drama of the chain gang and the ref spotting the ball. I enjoy the element of the catcher trying to “fool” the umpire
Technology and officiating is definitely finding that happy medium. Like the NHL adding offsides replay was intended for when a blatant offside was missed, but now gives us crazy long reviews for stuff that was off by a centimeter. As McDavid said, if they need to spend ten minutes to determine if it was offsides, it probably didn’t influence the game.
The French Open doesn’t use Hawkeye. They still argue about the marks on the court.
Haha, at least there are marks.
Is Hawkeye really AI? Just seems like really well calibrated cameras that get the calls right, and really fast at that.
I don’t think it’s AI… buzzwords are cool though.
AI would not remotely be the right tool here.
Strictly speaking, it’s machine vision. There’s a set of video cameras around the top of the stadium, and a computer tracking the ball through the image feeds (basically 2d cross-correlation plus some inference). By using multiple cameras the ball’s position can be fixed in three dimensions. The ball position is then compared to a spatial model of the court to determine if it was within the 2d bounds of the court when the third dimension was zero.
Technologically, this is a mashup of the virtual first down lines in football and Fox’s thankfully short lived glowing hockey puck. So, thirty-ish years old. But “AI” is trendy right now.
It’s cool and all, but anything that changes the pace of a competition inherently changes the outcome.
Today I learned there used to be white tennis balls. I just assumed they were always yellow
I tells ya, it was quite the challenge to follow those white balls on the TVs of the late 70s and 80s. Even now when I try to watch a classic Borg/McEnroe Wimbledon match it’s a real struggle to track the ball.
Doesn’t soccer sometines use yellow or orange balls in some leagues/countries under certain weather conditions? Or am I thinking about baseball? Or both?
Yes, after a certain point in the calendar, the EPL switches to a yellow or orange “snow” ball that won’t get lost in the snow if it were to come.
Zach is pretty much correct. They switch to a yellow “winter” ball after a certain point in the calendar, and then use the orange version if it’s snowing/has snowed on matchday.
Can’t wait for the AI Umpires in MLB.
Next step: AI players. Cannot wait for it to happen, all in the name of placing bets without having bothersome humans to interfere. For all sports, come to think of it, replace all humans with robots and AI. Robots do not get sick, go on holidays, get pregnant and perform at the required level all the time.
In the meantime I will miss the human umpires and referees in any sport and curse every time the flow of the game is interrupted by VAR and subsequent challenges, as much as it creates a level playing field.
John McEnroe must feel vindicated.