Wimbledon’s Rollout of Automated Line Judges Has Been Rocky

Wimbledon is breaking from its emphasis on tradition this summer by using automated line judges instead of human ones. The new change was thrust into the spotlight Sunday when it missed several points of a match due to human error.

During the match between Russian player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and British player Sonay Kartal, the latter hit a shot that went long, but wasn’t picked up by the camera technology. After a delay, the chair umpire, Nico Helwerth, ordered a replay instead of overruling the Hawk-Eye and calling the ball out. Kartal then won the point.

“It’s mind-boggling he could not call that out. It was right in front of his face,” said former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash during the BBC’s tournament coverage.

The All England Club, which stages the grass Slam, insists its technology is not artificial intelligence and requires human operators to function, which it blamed for Sunday’s error. The system was “inadvertently deactivated” for three points during the match because of an “operator error,” the club said. The club has insisted that the situation won’t—and can’t—happen again: “Following our review, we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking,” the club’s statement read.

Even before Sunday’s mishap, players and fans had been causing a racket about the new technology.

British player Jack Draper said he doesn’t “think it’s 100% accurate, in all honesty,” while fellow Briton Emma Raducanu also said “hopefully they can fix that” after a call she felt was “for sure out.”

The US and Australian opens have also moved to video line judges, leaving the French Open as the only Slam to still use human line judges.

Fans have protested dressed in the old Wimbledon line judge uniforms holding signs reading “A.I. took my job” and “Don’t sideline humans.” 

“We didn’t need to put line judges back on the court again,” All England Club CEO Sally Bolton said Monday. “We needed the system to be active.”