After 148 years, Wimbledon line judges have been replaced by AI, and their reduced roles as ‘glorified butlers’ has been nothing but sad.
Until this year, a group of around 300 tennis fanatics took two weeks off from their normal jobs for the honour of working at the world’s most prestigious tournament. They were paid – but it was for pride – not money.
Bent over, hands on knees in their iconic and pristine outfits, they would stare intently for hours on end at their assigned tramlines, waiting in silence for the moment they could spring upright and shout: ‘Out!’
But those days are over. This year, Wimbledon introduced an electric line-calling system (ELC) on all courts, quietly decommissioning the humans who once played such a visible role, essentially replacing them with robots.
The change is being sold as progress: fairer, faster, more accurate. Except, of course, when the technology isn’t turned on, as happened in a now-infamous moment when a clear out ball was allowed to stand because no one had flipped the virtual switch. ‘You cannot be serious’ comes to mind.
What of the humans who once manned the lines? Some have been reassigned to what might generously be called support roles… They now pop open fresh tubes of balls and accompany players to the toilet, while a camera system called Hawk-Eye determines whether a ball is in or out.
For decades, these human officials were trained to spot the subtlest of margins, to keep their cool under pressure, and to deliver split-second decisions in front of millions. Now, they are mostly background noise.
What are Wimbledon line judges doing this year?
Approximately 80 former line judges have been retained as ‘match assistants’ at Wimbledon this year.
‘They are there to assist the umpire with the ball changes, so opening the cans of balls and supervising the ball kids – who don’t need it,’ former line judge Pauline Eyre told the Daily Mail about the new role.
‘They take the players to the toilet, because when if player needs a toilet break, they have to have an official to go with them, because they’re not allowed to receive treatment.
‘[It was an] extremely skilled role. Now it’s very nice, because they still get to be involved, but they’re not using their extraordinary skills anymore…. [They are] glorified butlers.
‘[Some match assistants] are finding it, quite frankly, boring, and sort of feeling the loss, the loss of all their colleagues.’
‘The time is right for us to move on,’ Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, said before the start of the 2025 tournament.
‘We absolutely value the commitment that those line umpires have provided to the Championships over many years.
‘And we do have a significant number of them coming back in a new role as match assistants, so we’re really pleased to have many of them still involved with delivering the Championships.’
The biggest blunders since robots replaced line judges
Taylor Fritz vs Karen Khachanov: The quarter-final match was halted while both players were in the middle of a rally due to a ‘malfunction’ with ELC. Wimbledon blamed the incident on the position of a ball boy.
Sonay Kartal vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: The ELC system was accidentally turned off because of a ‘human error’. While it was down, one of Kartal’s shots landed long but was not called out, with the umpire forcing the players to replay the point in controversial scenes.
There’s obviously logic behind the change. For the vast majority of calls it reduces error, removes bias and levels the playing field. But it also erases a human element that, while flawed, was part of the theatre in SW19.
The tense silence after a close serve. The dramatic pause before the call. The moment when a player’s glare met a line judge’s deadpan stare. That choreography is gone now. And in its place? An invisible computer voice, a digital judgement with no pause and no appeal.
Wimbledon may be looking to the future – but a few sidelined humans are still lingering courtside, wistfully watching the lines they once guarded.
Should Wimbledon bring line judges back?
After a series of glitches, there are genuine questions as to whether the All England Club should bring line judges back into their usual roles.
Russian player Khachanov, speaking after an electric line-calling malfunction in his defeat to Fritz, said: ‘I’m more for line umpires, to be honest.
‘I don’t know. You feel a little bit [like the] court [is] too big, too alone without line umpires.’
‘Wimbledon line judges are being degraded’
Metro spoke to a number of Wimbledon fans about the reduced roles of line judges at the All England Club on Friday morning.
Brenda Price, 79, from South Wales, said: ‘If they’ve been trained to be line judges, it’s degrading isn’t it? You could have a student doing that. I think we’ve lost some tradition without line judges. They were an integral part of Wimbledon.’
Stuart Billington, from Northampton, was asked if line judges had been humiliated and added: ‘I would say so, yes. I think they should bring them back. If electric line-calling is not working, then you’re got to back up straight away.’
Khachanov added: ‘AI and electronic line calls has to be very precise and [make] no mistakes, but we’ve seen a couple.
‘That’s questionable why this is happening. Is [it] just like [an] error of the machine or what’s the reason?
‘Like today, I think there were a few calls. I don’t know, very questionable if it’s really touching the line or not. At the same time during one point, the machine called it just out during the rally. Sometimes it’s scary to let machine do what they want, you know?’
A crossroads between AI and humanity
Analysis from Metro‘s dedicated tennis reporter Liam Grace…
We appear to be at somewhat of a crossroads between AI and humanity. Not just at Wimbledon and not just in tennis – of course – but the Kartal vs Pavlyuchenkova incident was the perfect encapsulation.
Pavlyuchenkova’s distrust in the Hawk-Eye system was clear for everyone to see as she wondered aloud if Kartal’s shot, which had clearly landed long, was not called out because she was British.
That wasn’t the case at all – it was because the system had been accidentally turned off – but our lack of trust in technology remains fascinating and doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.
It begs the question, If ELC can go this wrong, especially on Centre Court at Wimbledon, then should tennis go back to human line judges?
The answer, sadly, is probably not. At the end of the day, all of the other biggest tennis tournaments in the world are using Hawk-Eye… It would probably look a little strange to keep line judges at just one event.
Jamie Murray, speaking exclusively to Metro, is adamant that most players would rather have electric line calling than line judges.
‘Players overall would rather have electric line calling than line judges,’ Murray said.
‘There’s 18 courts going at all times through the day. The system might work for 10 million calls but then it fails on one or two – and if it happens on a show court or whatever – maybe it blows up more than it should.
‘It’s the same system we’ve been using for the whole year and at all the other major events. There’s not been many issues as far as I’ve been aware (outside of Wimbledon) so it’s been working fine through the year.
‘I don’t think it’s been a failure. It’s far from being a failure. Wimbledon has had some issues with the set up but we’ve been playing with it the whole year with no problems so it’s not a thing that’s happening week-to-week like football where it’s always talked about. I don’t think it’s a major issue.’
So, it looks like line judges aren’t coming back. Hey, at this rate, the ball kids might be next. Somewhere in a Wimbledon basement, someone’s probably prototyping a device that can whizz across the grass hoovering up stray balls like a souped-up version of Hungry Hungry Hippos.