A chair umpire who officiated in Wimbledon finals says he is mourning “a sad day” after the All England Club dispensed with line judges in favour of artificial intelligence.
Responding to the announcement, Richard Ings told Telegraph Sport that “more than 300 good people and excellent officials – the best of the best working at the pinnacle of the sport – today had their love and passion ripped away”.
A former head of officiating at the ATP Tour, Ings had already seen his native Australia go down this road in 2021, swiftly followed by the US Open the following season. Wimbledon’s decision now leaves the French Open – whose umpires maintain the gloriously anachronistic habit of pointing at marks in the clay – as the final hold-out among the four majors.
“It’s sad but inevitable,” Ings added. “Nothing will hold back the tide of AI. And these technologies create gains for sure, but we also lose something on the human side. Will your job be safe from AI?
“Also, it’s important to remember that the players will still swear and break rackets and question calls. Meanwhile, not-ups and double-hits and touches and crowd noises et cetera will still require humans in a match to make judgment calls that may be right or may be wrong.
“It’s just a sad day where the question is ‘Are we gaining more than we are losing?’”
From a purely practical perspective, lesser tennis tournaments are likely to face a major recruitment issue, now that would-be officials cannot dream of their big day on Centre Court.
In a statement, the Lawn Tennis Association insisted that they were working with the Association of British Tennis Officials to “develop a new joint strategy that will ensure officials can be retained within the sport.”
But the challenges around this issue were neatly encapsulated on Wednesday by Andrew Jarrett, the long-serving referee who oversaw Wimbledon’s whole officiating apparatus between 2006 and 2019.
“I saw the announcement and it’s inevitable, I think,” Jarrett told Telegraph Sport. “It’s progress, like it or not. But there’s potentially more of a problem further down the food chain. Small pro events that can’t afford ELC (electronic line-calling) may struggle to source officials who no longer have the incentive of being able to prove their worth for selection to Wimbledon.”
If there was a last straw for line judges at Wimbledon, it probably came two years ago, during what proved to be Andy Murray’s final singles appearance at the Championships.
Deep in the deciding set of an epic second-round match against Stefanos Tsitsipas, Murray found a sliver of the line with a backhand return on break point. The ball was called out, however, and Murray declined to use one of his Hawk-Eye challenges because it had landed so close to the umpire’s chair.
The fact that he had been robbed was not relayed to Murray until the post-match press conference, where he visibly slumped in despair at the news. Eventually managing to find some words, he said: “It’s a hard one because I probably prefer having the line-judges on the court. It feels nicer to me. The challenges – I think the crowd, the TV, they probably quite like it. But when mistakes are getting made in important moments, you don’t want that.”
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
