Farewell tradition, hello robots: Wimbledon adjusts to life without line judges
Sometimes progress registers simply as absence, and so it was on the opening day of Wimbledon this year when the pursuit of greater accuracy led to the disappearance of the tournament’s famous line judges.Electronic line calls are now in operation in SW19, bringing the championships into line with the grand slam tournaments in Melbourne and New York and also the ATP Tour.The French Open still uses line judges.But the shift to camera‑based, AI‑enhanced decision-making cuts deeper at Wimbledon, where up to 300 line judges have been a colourful part of the tournament’s ensemble cast for the past 147 years.With protests outside the gates (albeit with tongue in cheek) and ambivalence among fans, there were also unexpected reactions from players to the changes.
In the men’s draw, Carlos Alcaraz and his first‑round opponent Fabio Fognini were to be seen questioning the decision of the new system, apparently unaware that the ability to challenge a call is another tradition now consigned to the past.In the women’s draw, meanwhile, the Chinese player Yuan Yue complained the new system was too quiet for her to hear its decision.“The voice, I cannot really hear it, it is a bit too low,” she said.“So I asked the referee can you [turn] it up a little bit.He said he cannot.
He said he will try to let us know [the call] because he has a machine that can look it up.I don’t really mind, I just want to hear it clearly.[The umpire’s] voice is a lot more loud than the automatic one so we can hear that clear.Other tournaments don’t really have this problem.”The electronic line-call system was developed by Hawk-Eye and uses AI to analyse footage from up to 18 cameras tracking the progress of the ball across the court.
If a serve is wide, or a forehand too long, manufacturers say the software will issue a notification within a tenth of a second.In a unique Wimbledon twist, those calls are then vocalised using recordings of the voices of staff from the All England Club.That can lead to an unusual experience in watching the play, or even competing in it.On court 18 during Cameron Norrie’s first-round match against Roberto Bautista Agut, any declaration of “fault” used the voice of a (forceful) ballboy, whereas “out” calls were announced in the voices of adults, both male and female.In the lower courts there was also the sense of disembodied calls floating between matches.
Britain’s Sonay Kartal lost a point at the Australian Open in January after she reacted to a call from a different court.Following her three-set victory against Jelena Ostapenko, however, she declared the conditions “perfectly fine”, though she echoed Yuan’s concerns.“I hit a few shots that were at a pretty big moment and the crowd kind of went nuts, so maybe I lost it a bit in that,” she said.Sally Bolton, the chief executive of the All England Club, said the new system attempts to strike a typical balance between modernity and tradition.“For us, it was time to make that change,” she said.
“It’s not a money‑saving exercise, the technology investment we’ve had to make to deliver electronic line calling is not insignificant,It’s about evolving the tournament and making sure that we’re providing the most effective possible line calling,“The line judges have been such an important part of the championships for so many years, and we obviously hugely appreciate the service that they’ve provided,Quite a few of them, around 80, are still with us as match assistants in a new role, supporting the chair umpire,”Sign up to The RecapThe best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s actionafter newsletter promotionVerdicts from the spectators were largely sceptical.
Though some had missed the changes altogether, many were grateful for the continued use of animated graphics on tight line calls, now known as “close calls”, despite the end of the challenge system.Others, however, missed the simple pleasure of watching someone standing stock still at the back of a court, their eyes focused determinedly on a single point.“You’re essentially removing the history and replacing it with a slightly robotic animated voice.It’s all a bit numbing,” said James from Ipswich, taking advantage of the shade underneath Centre Court mid-afternoon.“Everything is getting more accurate, but we’re losing the human drama.
I miss the theatre of seeing someone staring down the line like that,”Less nuanced views were also available,The deputy leader of Reform, Richard Tice, was up posting about electronic line calls at 6,30am on Monday and he was not happy,“We want our country back.
We want Wimbledon line judges back.Enough is enough,” he wrote on X.
Lindsey oil refinery owner Prax falls into administration as ministers urged to intervene
The government has called for an investigation into the conduct of bosses at one of the UK’s largest oil refineries after it collapsed into administration on Monday, prompting concern about job losses and disruption to fuel supplies.Sources familiar with the situation said that government officials had been growing increasingly fearful about the finances of State Oil, which owns the Prax Lindsey refinery in north Lincolnshire, since April.The heavily lossmaking company assured ministers it was in good health during a meeting at the Prax site in May but is understood to have suddenly admitted in the past week that it was on the verge of insolvency.The company, the only British business to own one of the UK’s five key refineries, is understood to have failed to comply with multiple requests from Westminster to open its books as it plunged towards failure.The government said workers had been “badly let down”
Speed restrictions imposed on two main train lines amid UK heatwave
Trains have been forced to run slower in southern Britain because of the heatwave, with speed restrictions imposed on two main lines out of London as temperatures on the track neared 60C.Passengers have been urged to check before travelling and warned to expect longer journeys and possible cancellations on routes west from London Paddington and south of the capital on the Brighton mainline.Restrictions were put in place at the weekend for the Brighton mainline through Monday and Tuesday, affecting Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services.Network Rail and train operators decided at midday on Monday to extend the speed restrictions to the western mainline, affecting primarily Great Western trains running to the south-west and south Wales.As temperatures in the south exceeded 30C, steel rails were heating up to about 60C in the hottest parts of the tracks such as deep cuttings and suntraps, according to Network Rail
WH Smith cuts sale price of high street business by £12m
WH Smith has cut the sale price of its high street business by £12m, after trading at the chain deteriorated in recent weeks.The 230-year-old British business closed the sale to the investment company Modella Capital on Monday, and revealed that the sale value terms had been revised down.WH Smith will now receive gross cash proceeds of up to £40m, not the £52m expected in March when it agreed to sell its 480 high street stores to Modella, which also owns Hobbycraft.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionShares in WH Smith were down 2% on Monday, after the news of the revised deal terms.WH Smith told the City that the original agreement was “no longer deliverable”
UK households hit by squeeze on living standards despite fastest growth in G7
UK households faced a renewed cost of living squeeze in the first three months of 2025 amid increases in taxes and inflation, official figures show, despite the economy growing at the fastest rate in the G7.The Office for National Statistics said an important measure of living standards – real household disposable income per head – fell by 1% in the first quarter after growth of 1.8% in the final three months of 2024, in the first quarterly decline for almost two years.The households’ saving ratio – which estimates the percentage of disposable income Britons save rather than spend – slumped by 1.1 percentage points to 10
Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch – research
The number of new entry-level UK jobs has dropped by almost a third since the launch of ChatGPT, figures suggest, as companies use artificial intelligence to cut back the size of their workforces.Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32% since the launch of the AI chatbot in November 2022, research by the job search site Adzuna released on Monday has found. These entry-level jobs now account for 25% of the market in the UK, down from 28.9% in 2022.Businesses are increasingly using AI as a route to improve efficiency and reduce staff numbers
What would happen if Thames Water is temporarily renationalised?
When the environment secretary, Steve Reed, stood up in parliament earlier this month his message for the owners of the struggling Thames Water appeared clear: there would be no leniency on fines for breaching environmental standards – despite the requests of creditors who control the company.Amid the standoff, Reed said the government had “stepped up our preparations” for the next stage: putting the company, a provider of water and sewage services to 16 million customers in London and south-east England, into temporary nationlisation, known as a special administration regime (SAR).Thames Water’s perilous position stems from years of mismanagement, during which it built up unsustainable debts of about £20bn. Over the past year its problems have come to a head, with the company scrambling through a court battle in February to secure emergency funding, and now finding new owners.Things have not gone smoothly
1 July changes: minimum wage, Centrelink payments, parental leave, road fines and everything else coming for the 2025-26 financial year
UK food delivery firms step up checks after claims of illegal workers
Gov.uk smartphone app to launch with limited functionality
China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match
Brain fade sees basketball player dunk in his own net to trigger double-overtime defeat
Katie Boulter rounds off Britain’s opening day in the sun at Wimbledon