This year’s Wimbledon tournament, which started Monday, looks a bit different. Line judges — the folks who determine whether a ball is in or out of bounds — are not part of the game.
“I’m a bit sad because I’m looking at my TV and it looks like somebody’s done a bad Photoshop on the court,” said Pauline Eyre, a line judge for two decades. “There are no line judges at the back.”
When the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, which runs Wimbledon, announced the tournament was doing away with line judges starting this year, tennis purists decried the decision.
Line judges are assigned to a specific line to watch and make calls on. They are stoic and nonreactive, communicating their calls to the chair umpire through hand signals. They also watch players’ feet and call foot faults during serves when necessary.
“I did work with [John] McEnroe once and he did stick his hands on his hip and stare me down,” Eyre said. “I had to just stand with my hands behind my back, and as you say, look very calm, whilst inside being absolutely terrified.”
Now, in the absence of judges like Eyre, the tournament will use an electronic calling system that has been implemented in other tournaments.
“ I’m surprised that Wimbledon didn’t hold out longer than Roland Garros did, the French Open, because Wimbledon has always respected its tradition so much,” Eyre said, “and line judges are such an iconic part of what you look at on the television.”
With that change, more than 200-line judges are out of work. Eyre calls it a ‘sad day’ in tennis.
“I think sports are about human beings. I think they’re about athletes who are working as hard as they can and working against their own demons and all the different things that might happen around them,” Eyre said. “When you try and just take out anything that makes that human, I think you lose a really important part of the game.”
And aside from the human aspect, Eyre said that Wimbledon viewers would miss out on some fantastic moments between players and judges. Sometimes players collide with judges, question their calls, or have other interactions on the court.
“Those are such brilliant iconic memories, and they’re lost for the future because we must make it more automated,” Eyre said. “It’s not always the best thing, is it?”
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Thomas Danielian produced and edited this segment for broadcast with Micaela Rodríguez. Grace Griffin produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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