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.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s sad to think that I won&rsquo;t have a moment like that again. I won&rsquo;t get to stand on Centre Court. And I wish they could have told us before this year&rsquo;s tournament so that we&rsquo;d have a chance to say goodbye. I&rsquo;ll always love tennis, but I don&rsquo;t think I could bear to go to Wimbledon now as a spectator. It just wouldn&rsquo;t have the same atmosphere,&rdquo; Wendy told The Guardian.
The officiating technology known as &lsquo;Live Electronic Line Calling&rsquo; (Live ELC) will be in place for all Championships and qualifying match courts and cover the &lsquo;out&rsquo; and &lsquo;fault&rsquo; calls that were previously made by line judges.
Wendy further went on to reveal she was &lsquo;gutted&rsquo; to hear the shocking changes on the news.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s so much that a human line judge does that a computer just can&rsquo;t offer. We certainly keep up tennis&rsquo;s traditions &ndash; 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,&rdquo; said Wendy.
&ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added.
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&mdash;IANS

There will no line judges at Wimbledon from now on

Wendy Smith ‘gutted’ that she has been replaced by new tech

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

Wendy Smith ‘gutted’ that she has been replaced by new tech

October 13, 2024 | 24:17 IST

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