The governing body of men’s tennis has agreed to implement electronic line calling at their Masters 1000 events this year, according to a report published by Tennis Majors.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the ATP has been under pressure to minimise the number of people on the court at one time. Leading to bosses leaning towards the use of electronic line calling which replaces lines judges. The system has already been used at various tournaments in the past including last year’s US Open, as well as the ATP Next Gen Finals.
It believe that the decision will apply to every Masters 1000 event which will take place on a hard court. Those events are in Miami, Canada, Cincinnati, Paris and Shanghai. The same will also apply to the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells should the event take place later this year. Such a move would also reduce the overall number of people at the event at one time.
World No.1 Novak Djokovic will be one of the biggest backers of the new development after previously saying he would like to see electronic line calling implemented at every ATP tournament. As for the accuracy of the software, the managing director of Hawk-eye Live, James Japhet, told The New York Times that just 14 out of 225,000 calls made during the first week of the US Open were errors.
“With all my respect for the tradition and the culture we have in this sport, when it comes to people present on the court during a match, including line umpires, I really don’t see a reason why every single tournament in this world, in this technological advanced era, would not have what we had during Cincinnati/NewYork tournament,” Djokovic told reporters in October.
“The technology is so advanced right now, there is absolutely no reason why you should keep line umpires on the court.”
Critics argue that implementing Hawk-Eye will result in inevitable job losses, as well as high costs for tournaments. The cost of implementing the system is in the region of $50,000 per court, according to ESPN.
Kevin Anderson, who is the president of the Player Council, says further discussions will need to be made in the future regarding the potential implications for those working as lines judges.
“That’s something I guess we still have to discuss and think about, because it doesn’t maybe seem something pressing now, but obviously in a lot of sports, that’s something that’s really important. I’m sure we’ll have more conversations about that moving forward,” Anderson told Tennis Majors.
The is yet to be a formal announcement by the ATP regarding their decision of using Hawk-Eye live at the Masters events.
