The most important thing is that there is a device to place part of the onus on participants by giving them a limited number of challenges

or not the ball has crossed the line, is consequently long overdue and has the potential, if properly implemented, to transform the environment in which the sport is played.

The single most important thing is that, as happens in cricket as well as American Football, there is a device to place at least part of the onus on the participants by giving them a limited number of opportunities to challenge decisions because that is what mostly diverts the hostility from officials.

Which brings us to what had looked like a contender to last to the end of 2017 as the greatest sports story of the year until it was upstaged all of seven days later, when Brady’s tennis-playing equivalent produced that sport’s greatest-ever comeback in extending his record haul of Grand Slam wins five years after his previous success, with some vital help from technology.

As much as it was for the man himself, Roger Federer’s Australian Open win was a triumph for those who had held their nerve in the face of his opposition to it when he was dominating the game a decade earlier.

What greater vindication could they possibly have had than the man who had once refused to use ‘Hawk-Eye’ appeals and had claimed the system was killing him, should have benefited as he did from its use in the closing moments of his meeting with Rafael Nadal, prompting him to comment: “That’s why we got the Hawk-Eye, the challenge system is there. I’m happy it didn’t disappoint me.”

He had won the final point only after the failure of Nadal’s challenge, when his decisive winner was called in but rather more telling was that moments earlier, when his second serve was called out with the match at deuce, Federer had challenged, been proved right and duly earned his match point with an ace.

As in other sports, the use of technology in tennis has definitely been instrumental in reducing obvious errors and, in turn, has resulted in more respectful treatment of officials.

Well it had until another of Sunday’s sporting encounters when callow Canadian Denis Shapovalov got a bit too frustrated with himself and let fly to end his team’s Davis Cup tie with Great Britain by hitting the umpire flush in the face with the ball when letting rip with his anger.

Ah yes, the use of technology can cure many ills, but there will always still be room for human error. TOMORROW Susan Egelstaff