Wimbledon stars make feelings clear on 147 year change - "I think that kills it"
Wimbledon is underway but the championship is taking place without line judges for the first time in 147 years with one player claiming the fan experience has declined as a result.
The decision was made to cut 300 of them and replace them with cameras, developed by HawkEye, that now do the job. It meant the play on Day One had a less than traditional look with no smartly dressed individuals being seen on any court, shouting "out" when the ball didn't quite hit the line.
The change means that Wimbledon joins other Grand Slams, the US Open and the Australian Open, in embracing the modern technology. The switch though hasn't been universally well received after the first 24 hours with American's Frances Tiafoe among those to admit he misses the line judges.
The 12th seed enjoyed the jeopardy that you got when a call came, with players then having the ability to challenge. That has now gone and a number of players admit they miss the old way.
Tiafoe said: "I actually like [it] with them [line judges] on the court, because I think for fanfare it's better. If I were to hit a serve on a big point, you go up with the challenge, is it in, is it out? The crowd is, like, 'ohhh'. There's none of that. If I hit a good serve now and they call it out, you may still think it's in, but it doesn't matter. I think that kind of kills it."
British star Cam Norrie, who was a semi-finalist at the All England Club several years ago, also believes the traditional ways added to the tournament.
He said: "Obviously there's a lot of jobs and people that love tennis, which will definitely be missed from them." Norrie though did add: "As a player it's pretty black or white with the calls. In, out... there's no mistake, nothing happening. Definitely you've got to feel for those linesmen and those people. That's a bit tough for them, but it's pretty black or white with the calling."
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The volume of the calls though has been raised as an issue. Line judges shouting "out" was hard to miss, but the new calls cannot always be heard, especially on the outside courts. Norrie suggested the calls were a bit quiet at the beginning of his match on court 18 but that there were no "bad calls".
China's Yuan Yue, who played her first-round match against Germany's Eva Lys on court eight, said: "The voice, I cannot really hear it, it is a bit too low.
"I asked the referee can you [turn] it up a little bit. He said he cannot. He said he will try to let us know [the call] because he has a machine that can look it up. I don't really mind, I just want to hear it clearly. [The umpire's] voice is a lot more loud than the automatic one so we can hear that clearly."
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