Iconic Wimbledon line judges booted as electronic system gets green light

Wimbledon announced Wednesday that it is scrapping its iconic line judges in favour of electronic line-calling from 2025, changing the face of the grass-court tournament.

Smartly dressed umpires and line judges are as much part of the 147-year-old Grand Slam as strawberries and cream and the all-white kit that players must wear.

But Wimbledon has now fallen into line with other tournaments around the world, saying the move is to “balance tradition and innovation”.

The men’s ATP Tour in 2023 announced the tour-wide adoption of electronic line-calling (ELC) from 2025 in a move to “optimise accuracy and consistency across tournaments”, with the women’s WTA Tour moving in the same direction.

The technology is used at the Australian Open and US Open, though the French Open remains an outlier among the four Grand Slams.

The All England Club announced it would make the switch to live ELC from next year.

Extensive testing

“The officiating technology will be in place for all Championships and qualifying match courts and cover the ‘out’ and ‘fault’ calls that have previously been made by line umpires,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Tournament chiefs said the decision to use ELC, which builds on existing ball-tracking and line-calling technology, was made following extensive testing during this year’s Championships.

Since 2007, Hawk-Eye has assisted the officials at Wimbledon on certain courts, with players able to challenge line calls.

“The decision to introduce live electronic line calling at the Championships was made following a significant period of consideration and consultation,” said All England Club chief executive Sally Bolton.

“Having reviewed the results of the testing undertaken at the Championships this year, we consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating.

“For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour.

“We take our responsibility to balance tradition and innovation at Wimbledon very seriously. Line umpires have played a central role in our officiating set-up at the Championships for many decades and we recognise their valuable contribution and thank them for their commitment and service.”

The All England Club also announced that the men’s and women’s singles finals would start at the later time of 4pm local time (5pm SA time) on the final weekend of the tournament, pushed back from 2pm (3pm SA time).

Next year’s Wimbledon takes place from June 30 until July 13.