Hawk-eyed humans make way for Hawk-eye tech
Had Novak Djokovic’s infamous last stray strike on the ball at the 2020 US Open happened at the 2021 Australian Open instead, he wouldn’t have been disqualified. Why? Because the ball wouldn’t have hit the line umpire. Why? Because there aren’t any.
This year’s season-opening Slam has witnessed many unprecedented scenes; add to it the use of electronic line calling on all courts for the first time in a Grand Slam. People stationed behind the players, crouching or sitting on the side for service calls, yelling the call if the ball landed outside the line, players engaging in heated verbal duels with them (Serena Williams at the 2009 US Open, “you cannot be serious” John Mcenroe at the 1981 Wimbledon or Martina Hingis at the 1999 French Open, to mention a few iconic ones)— line umpires have been an integral part of tennis. Now they may become a thing of the past, like wooden rackets.
Melbourne is showing the way, replacing an entire aerie of hawk-eyed humans with Hawkeye technology.
The live electronic line calling, delivered through remote tracking cameras placed in different areas of the court, automatically sends the audio line calls in real time. A pre-recorded human voice goes “out”, “fault” or “foot fault”. For this tournament, those voices are of Australia’s front-line workers during the Covid-19 battle, from a Victorian paramedic who was infected with the virus last year to a New
South Wales volunteer who rescued people from floodwaters last month.
Hawk-eye technology has been part of top-level tennis for over a decade but was required only when players wished to challenge the umpire’s calls. Post the resumption of the tour last August amid Covid-19, electronic calling was used at New York’s Western and Southern Open and the US Open, which though still called upon line umpires on its major courts (unfortunately for Djokovic). The year-ending ATP Finals in London too made the switch.
That technological advancements are fast creeping into sport isn’t novelty. In cricket, front foot no-balls are now tracked and called by the third umpire sitting in front of a TV, while the football world continues to wage a war against the hair-splitting accuracy of VAR (Video Assistant Referee).
At the Australian Open, most players have welcomed this shift to technology with enthusiasm, even if it means they can no longer challenge any calls (“close calls” show up on the big screen automatically).
Serena Williams is convinced about the use of technology as a “futurist, like Iron Man”. “I’m loving it here... I just needed to adapt, and now I’m adapted to it. I think it’s for the best,” she said at a post-match press conference. Her compatriot Naomi Osaka felt it allows her to focus on her game more.
“It saves me the trouble of attempting to challenge or thinking about did they call it correctly or not,” Osaka told journalists.
World No. 1 Djokovic, unsurprisingly, has continued with his advocacy for machines to take over.
“I don’t see a reason why we need line umpires if we have technology like this,” Djokovic said. “I am not a person who adores technology and cannot live without it—in some regards technocratic society has gone too far in my opinion—but if we in tennis can be more efficient and precise, why not?”
India’s Rohan Bopanna, playing on the tour for 18 years, said, “If it’s like this on all courts, then why not (use the technology)? Here in Australia, it’s accurate and fair for every player, irrespective of the court.”
There has been the odd voice of dissent against it. America’s Frances Tiafoe, who lost to Djokovic in the second round, said “I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan”, while French veteran Gilles Simon thought the technology was “not at all accurate”.
The data tells otherwise; Hawk-eye pegs an estimated 3.6mm margin of error, lower than the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) acceptable 5mm leeway. According to a report in the New York Times, out of the 2,25,000 electronic calls made in the first week of the US Open last year, only 14 were erroneous. That’s a fault rate of 0.0062 per cent. At the 2019 US Open, on the other hand, there were 265 correct player challenges out of 1,538 through the first four rounds, which means 17.23 per cent of the challenged calls from line umpires were erroneous.
Do line umpires then stand the risk of being redundant in tennis? Bopanna reckoned it would depend from tournament to tournament, and how the sport resets after the pandemic. It’s perhaps hard to imagine a complete surrender to technology at the Wimbledon, for long the torchbearers of tradition, and the French Open—or any major clay court tournament, for that matter—where chair umpires physically inspect the mark of the balls left on the red dirt.
Hawk-eye’s website mentions that the electronic line calling service is used in over 80 tournaments on the circuit, but the cost of implementation means a majority of that number is at the cream (the Grand Slams, ATP tournaments, etc.). At the lower levels of tennis, including on the ATP Challenger and ITF tours, sharp eyes are still valued.