Wimbledon’s silent farewell: A line judge’s heartfelt goodbye that never came

New Delhi: The All England Lawn Tennis Club announced on Wednesday that Wimbledon will replace line judges with electronic line calling technology from 2025. Following the announcement, Wendy Smith, a line judge, who has been officiating at the tournament since 1982, is devastated and claims she did not get a chance to say goodbye to the mecca of tennis.  

“It’s sad to think that I won’t have a moment like that again. I won’t get to stand on Centre Court. And I wish they could have told us before this year’s tournament so that we’d have a chance to say goodbye. I’ll always love tennis, but I don’t think I could bear to go to Wimbledon now as a spectator. It just wouldn’t have the same atmosphere,” Wendy told The Guardian.

The officiating technology known as ‘Live Electronic Line Calling’ (Live ELC) will be in place for all Championships and qualifying match courts and cover the ‘out’ and ‘fault’ calls that were previously made by line judges.

Wendy further went on to reveal she was ‘gutted’ to hear the shocking changes on the news.

“There’s so much that a human line judge does that a computer just can’t offer. We certainly keep up tennis’s traditions – I think we make the court look fully dressed. And spectators can learn a lot about the game when they can see the discussions between a line judge and the chair umpire. All of that will be lost,” said Wendy.

“So when I heard on Wednesday that the tournament is replacing us line judges with electronic line calling, I was gutted. It hurt even more because I only found out when it was announced in the news and my phone started pinging with people asking me how I felt,” she added.

 

—IANS