The topography of the sports landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace as new developments in technology become more and more applicable and indispensable to the various disciplines. These advancements, which are driven by the internet and mobile apps, have led to significant changes in the way sports are played, watched and managed. Since the turn of this century, very few sports, if any, have escaped the wide swathe charted by the blade of technology’s scythe. These new adaptations are not always willingly embraced with open arms since they signal the elimination of an important tradition associated with a particular game, and the replacement of or determining the human input in a critical aspect of the game.
Last Wednesday, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, the home of the fabled Wimbledon Tennis Championships, announced that it was culminating the 147-year tradition of using line judges. The officials, neatly attired in their navy blue jackets, pinstriped shirts and white trousers or skirts, have toiled for many a year on the low-tier tennis circuits, yearning for one of the 300 coveted places on the officiating roster for the 650 matches spread over the two-week summer event.
The Wimbledon hosts declared that all 18 match courts will be installed with Hawk-Eye’s live electronic line-calling (Live ELC) system for the 2025 Championships, bringing it in step with two of the other three tennis Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open and the US Open, which used the technology on all their competition courts since 2021, and 2022, respectively. The system, which will cover all ‘out’ and ‘fault’ calls, the traditional dictate of the line umpires, allows for automated voice calls to be made within a tenth of a second of the ball landing. As a result of the change, it is expected that the Hawk-Eye challenge system – in place since 2007 – where players could review calls made by line judges will be removed.
“The decision to introduce Live Electronic Line Calling at the Championships was made following a significant period of consideration and consultation. 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,” All England Club Chief Executive Sally Bolton said in a statement. Beginning in 2025, the ATP Tour events will feature the Live ELC technology, while the French Open remains as the only Grand Slam event which relies solely on human officials.
Once again, we are witnessing the replacement of human interaction with an artificial intelligence (AI) application. No longer will spectators be privy to the throwing of tantrums by the likes of John McEnroe, or the screaming matches between chair umpires and the likes of Serena Williams, as players get into heated arguments with line judges over calls of ‘in’ or ‘out.’ While players will complain – as they often do when losing – intermittently about electronic line calling, there has been a growing consensus that the technology is now more accurate and consistent than human beings. The removal of the line judge will now add more duties to the video review officials.
Of course, the conservatives and the luddites will be opposed to these modern applications which tinker with the long-in-the-tooth traditions. All proposals or changes are not always in the best interests of the game, and in some instances, fundamentally change, or influence the way the game is played. Occasionally, the driver of modification of rule changes is the television tycoons, aspiring to maximise their return on every televised second of action, best exemplified by the addition of the clock to Major League Baseball (SN editorial, 22 March, 2023, ‘Tampering with the game’).
However, there is one significant aspect of the adaptations of modern technological advancements to sport, and that is the element of fair play. Here, in the West Indies, we have seen first hand the impact video reviews have had on the game of cricket, especially on the decisions involving close run outs and LBW appeals. Whilst there will always be the odd verdict which retains a lingering doubt, by and large, the element of ‘biased umpiring’ is almost non-existent thanks to a panel of neutral international umpires and technology. The adaptation of the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) system by FIFA at the 2018 World Cup was an important leap forward for the integrity game of football, which, like the sport of boxing, had suffered for years at the hands of biased and corrupt officials. Again, no system is perfect, and while VAR has improved the quality of officiating – although fans would like to see quicker decisions – the issue is not necessarily the accuracy of the technology, but rather the interpretation of the laws of the game by individual judgment and subjectivity.
In an interview with the BBC, Dr Anna Fitzpatrick, who played at Wimbledon between 2007 and 2013, and now lectures in sports performance and analysis at Loughborough University, observed, “A human element of sport is one of the things that draws us in.” Once drawn in, spectators wish to see a fair game, and hopefully, the adaptation of modern technology will lead to that result.
