No line judges at Wimbledon: you cannot be serious

In July 1965, playing at the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan marked a significant shift in his music, sparking a wrangle with his traditional fans and disaffecting the festival audience.

He opened his set with the famous protest song Maggie’s Farm playing an amplified 1964 Fender Stratocaster sunburst. His backup band, which included members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, were also amplified.

Dylan’s electric conversion was widely considered a pivotal moment in the evolution of rock music and proved one thing – that it is not hard to alienate an audience that have come to expect what they have always had and are given something else entirely.

Tradition is a funny old thing. But times do change and next week at Wimbledon there will be no line judges for the first time in its 148-year history.

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Like Dylan almost exactly 60 years ago, Wimbledon is going electric. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be taking over from the Homo sapiens.

“You cannot be serious” has been a common reaction. But disgruntled players next week, when the championship begins, can only rage against the machine for disagreeable line calls.

Line judges will no longer be in the line of fire for angry tennis players at Wimbledon. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images

While it represents a historic change, the system has been used in other tournaments before Wimbledon and although the All England Club is falsely perceived to be the most traditional of the four Grand Slams, it’s the French at Roland-Garros who have proven the most determined to maintain human control of tennis.

The French Open does not use electronic line calling and continues to rely on line judges and umpires climbing down from their chairs to closely inspect marks on the clay to determine whether shots are in or not.

It is the only Grand Slam tournament that still has line judges and where players are not allowed to use electronic replays to challenge decisions.

So, gone from Wimbledon are the official Polo Ralph Lauren uniforms that normally peppered the court and inspired some style, but not always respect from the players.

Gone too will be the polite announcements from the chair that “Mr Alcaraz is challenging the call on the right baseline; the ball was called out” and there’ll be no need for anyone to emulate Roger Federer, who used to stick his racquet in the air without saying a word when he wanted to question a line call.

Consigned to history is the theatre of the player being correct and the ball shown by Hawkeye to be in and, then, the scenes of cameras and the entire Centre Court turning to the blushing face of the official.

The players can still ask for replays on screen but the call will no longer be between human perception and technology.

One of the obvious questions the decision raises is why people attend Wimbledon in such numbers, when many of them are not tennis fans for the rest of the year.

In 2024 the attendance for the fortnight was 526,455 or an average of 37,603 people each day.

Tennis aside, part of the answer is the spectacle of confrontations with officials and the explosive nature of some of the world’s top players in the world’s most treasured tennis event.

Nick Kyrgios arguing with an umpire at Wimbledon in 2022. Photograph: Frey/TPN/Getty Images

Fans enjoy the interaction and the louder and more unhinged gets the more they become involved. When Nick Kyrgios stares at the line where the ball has been called out, turns and begins his walk towards the line judge who called it, the entire stadium braces itself.

The crowd feed off the aggression and competitive spirit of the players, especially when they interface with the officials.

John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Marat Safin, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi, Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, but not her sister Venus, could turn ugly when the mood took them. Then the fans insinuate themselves into the action, usually by booing.

It is called the human condition, where people create heroes and villains on the court and in those dramas the line judges have often played a lead role.

The change also means there will be no more disqualifications for players hitting the ball at line judges, as Novak Djokovic did five years ago.

The top seed at the 2020 US Open was disqualified in his fourth-round match after losing serve to trail 6-5 against Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta.

The world number one at the time took a ball out of his pocket and hit it behind him with “negligent disregard of the consequences”, striking a female line judge in the throat.

For that he was tossed.

All in the line of duty for officials who, in addition to marshalling the lines, were keepers of decorum and could report to the umpire audible obscenities at their end of the court, or spitting at fans, as Kyrgios did in 2022.

The Australian player delighted the crowd by calling a Wimbledon line judge, who had approached the umpire’s chair during the game, a “snitch” during one of his meltdowns.

It is a balance, says the club, between innovation and tradition, although the change seems a more seismic decision than if they were to relax their mostly white dress code that goes back to the 19th century.

Fans, as they usually do, will adapt to having less flash points and more technology. They will get used to it, just as they did with Dylan’s Stratocaster at the Newport Folk Festival.

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