Wimbledon AI system slammed by players for missing out balls

Players at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships have critiqued the use of AI after the tournament moved to replace human line judges with an AI-powered system.

For the first time, Wimbledon, which is run by the All England Club, implemented an electronic line calling system (ELC), which detects when a ball is out. However, it made the wrong call a number of times, according to players.

British tennis player Emma Raducanu said that in one instance, the technology failed to call an out ball when her opponent had hit it out. According to The Telegraph, the TV replay indicates that the ball was indeed out.

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Similarly, a ball went out during a match between Russian player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and British player Sonay Kartal, but it was not picked up by the AI. The umpire then had to stop the rally and told the players to replay the point. Wimbledon calls this a “human error” because the ELC had been turned off.

Arguably, the most alarming case was when player Ben Shelton was told that he had to hurry up his game as the lowering sunlight would mean the ELC would stop working.

The ELC also raised inclusivity issues, with players saying that they could not hear the ELC’s speaker system. One deaf player said that she was unable to tell if she won a point or not without the line judges’ hand signals.

All England Club chair Debbie Jevans fought back at the complaints, saying that ELC was constantly requested previously to ensure accuracy.

“When we did have linesmen, we were constantly asked why we didn’t have electronic line calling because it’s more accurate than the rest of the tour,” Jevans said.

This is not the first time that ELC has caused issues. German player Alexander Zverev called out the technology in April after the AI once again failed to call an out ball. Zverev took a photo of the mark the ball had left on the clay court, and he received a warning for doing so.

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Daniel Croft

Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding for and experience writing in the technology space. Having studied at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing across a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music, and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.

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Wimbledon AI system slammed by players for missing out balls

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