(London) Wimbledon announced Wednesday that it was abandoning its iconic lines judges in favor of an electronic verification system, thus changing the face of the only Grand Slam tennis tournament played on grass.
Smartly dressed referees and linesmen have been as much a part of the London tournament as time immemorial as the strawberries, cream and all-white outfits that the players must wear.
But Wimbledon has just announced a major development in this area, aiming according to the organizers to “balance tradition and innovation”, by renouncing these line judges, following an ATP measure.
The men’s circuit has in fact decided in 2023, by 2025, to generalize an electronic device making it possible to check whether or not the ball has touched the line (ELC), with the aim of “optimizing precision and consistency between tournaments “.
If the Grand Slam tournaments remain free of their choice, the All England Club, which manages Wimbledon, indicated on Wednesday that it itself would move to the ELC from 2025.
“The refereeing technology will be implemented for all matches, from qualifying to the final, and will concern “out” and “fault” calls which were until now made by the line referees,” the organizers said in a press release.
Tournament officials said the decision to use ELC, which builds on existing ball tracking and line calling technology, was made following extensive testing during the tournament. 2024.
“After reviewing the test results […]we consider that the technology is sufficiently robust and that the time has come to take this important step in the quest for maximum precision,” explained All England Club chief executive Sally Bolton.
“We take our responsibility to balance tradition and innovation at Wimbledon very seriously. The line referees played a central role in our refereeing system […] for many decades and we recognize their valuable contribution and thank them for their commitment and service,” she stressed.
The All England Club also revealed that the men’s and women’s singles finals will now start later, at 4 p.m. local (11 a.m. Eastern), on the final weekend of the tournament.
Next year, Wimbledon will take place from June 30 to July 13.