Tennis: Wimbledon 2025 Electronic Line Calling Glitch
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
As we have reported on this website, for the first time in the 148-year history of the Wimbledon Championships, there are no line judges this year, as they have been replaced by electronic line calling.
However, after the electronic line calling system was accidentally deactivated in a controversial episode on 6 July, the organisers of the Championships have made changes to the system, in order to remove the possibility of a repetition of an "operator error" which resulted in the ball-tracking technology being turned off for one game in the fourth-round match between the British player, Sonay Kartal, and the Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, on Centre Court.
The organisers have stated that:
"Following our review, we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking."
And have added that:
"Whilst the source of the issue was human error, this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made."
Let us hope that is so and that any further glitches in the system do not stop play again!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
