Electronic Line Calling

The era of electronic line calling has arrived in tennis albeit on a selectively limited basis, and I for one, believe it is a good thing. The Nasdaq-100 open in Key Biscayne, Florida is the first official ATP and WTA tour event to employ the Hawk-Eye technology on its stadium courts which will allow players to “challenge” line calls. Players are allocated two challenges per set – sort of. If a player challenges and is correct, his number of available challenges remains at two. If a player challenges and is incorrect, the number of challenges is reduced by one. Players on non-stadium courts are still stuck with mere humans and won’t be able to challenge calls.

The tournament has been going on for just under a week and so far the players aren’t faring that well. Only 27% of player challenges have been correct although some challenges have clearly been done for novelty. Charles Bricker’s tennis blog for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has some interesting quotes from James Blake on the new system. Blake thinks that some players may be challenging based on hope rather than confidence in a mistake. He also said that perhaps the players will realize that the lines-people are getting the calls right. I found that last comment interesting because if the lines-people were getting the calls right all of the time, the impetus for installing Hawk-Eye just wouldn’t be there. People are talking about using Hawk-Eye technology because some crucial line calls in big matches have been blown and television audiences around the world knew about it because of the technology. At the US Open, players were looking up to the television broadcast location to get an indication of whether a call was correct or not because they knew the TV guys had the definitive answer.

Surprisingly, the world’s number one men’s tennis player, Roger Federer, seems dead against the new challenge system. He prefers the human element and believes that throughout the course of a match and tournament, the calls will even out. This week in Key Biscayne, he has further railed against the new system because it encourages the fans to get involved by spurring on players to make challenges. All of Federer’s arguments seem weak to me. Clearly, the calls don’t even themselves out. One only need remember the 2004 US Open quarterfinal between Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati to understand that this simply isn’t true. Just ask Serena – she got screwed at least 3 times in that match.

Federer’s latest objection to crowd involvement seems irrational as that is actually a benefit of the challenge system. Tennis needs crowds to be more engaged and this will help do it. Showing the replay on large video screens was a brilliant idea. It lets everyone in the stadium see the result of the challenge and feel a part of the process. I don’t think crowd involvement means the sport is headed down the path of becoming pro wrestling.

In Peter Bodo’s excellent Tennis World Blog, he posted an entry on the new system and I was surprised at the number of negative comments related to the use of Hawk-Eye. It seemed like three out of every four was against it. Most people were traditionalists, but a few disliked it because it can only be used on stadium courts and thus creates a class difference for players. Unfortunately, that argument doesn’t hold any water as there is already a class difference in tennis. From the Grand Slams to the Challenger circuit, the luxuries afforded players vary greatly. At the top of the game, players get to play on stadium courts and have Hawk-Eye. At the bottom, players might be lucky to have a ball boy on the court. Hawk-Eye is just another benefit of being a top player, at least for the moment. Once the technology becomes more streamlined, it’s certainly possible that it will get expanded to non-stadium courts, but that will probably take years.

The debut of the challenge system at the Hopman Cup in Australia this past January was very successful and that success has continued at the Nasdaq-100. So far, players have been wrong more often than right, but at least they have peace of mind for the next point. That alone might be the best argument from a player’s point of view.