- Wimbledon's line calls have replaced human judges
- Players like Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu have expressed frustration for questionable calls
- Despite its precision, Wimbledon's system has experienced a malfunction that also raised a violent reaction among fans
Wimbledon reached the headlines this year by completely eliminating human line judges, replacing them with a system designed to make automated calls with precise precision. But while technology can be making most of the correct calls, it is also causing frustration among players and fans equally. Complaints have become lost or delayed calls, inaudible ads and a lack of transparency when things go wrong.
Hawk-Eye Live, a system composed of a high speed and processing cameras nest, is now officiating all Wimbledon line calls and is supposed to be incredibly precise, rather than having humans aligned on the court.
But calls were not always as precise or even as audible as they should be. It is possible that you do not notice on television, where commentators fill the silence, but apparently, the players fought to listen to the real calls. Yue Yuan literally asked the referee during his party if anyone could increase the volume of AI.
Ask Jack Draper, who, after a hard defeat against Marin Cilic, said he distrusted the accuracy of AI in multiple cases. Emma Raducanu raised a similar problem after losing a nearby match against Aryna Sabalenka. She made it clear that she thought that one of the line calls was completely wrong, leaving when AI said
Not to mention that when Sonay Kartal was on the verge of victory against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the AI system simply closed. The All England Club later apologized, saying: “It is now clear that the ELC Live system, which worked optimally, was deactivated by error by the court side of the court for a game for those who operated the system.”
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Not all lathes use AI. France's open still retains human judges. It is a problem of power, as well as precision. If a referee makes a bad decision, a player can challenge him. But the new Wimbledon system is the judge. You cannot argue with a robot voice or affirm that I was looking at another time at the wrong time. The All England Club presents the system as more fair than human line judges. Whether or not, displaced line judges are understandably annoying. More than 300 of them were cut this year, and some appeared outside the land with protest signs.
The Judges of Line AI did not come out of nowhere. Wimbledon has been advancing towards AI's trial, and other tournaments have already abandoned the line judges. But maybe it's not just about machines. Wimbledon is a strange tournament, full of ritual. When you remove line judges and their arm movements practiced, it eliminates an important element of the tournament. And without the human flowering that make the tournament fun, Wimbledon is just a meaningless blow of a ball between two rackets.
