Tennis is often referred to as a “gentlemen’s sport”, the game with long-standing traditions that remained unchanged for years. In the times when tennis must compete for the viewers not only with other sports but also various other entertainment channels, such as video and gaming platforms, tennis might even be too conservative. However, one aspect of tennis has changed dramatically over the past years – line calling.
Sam Groth holds the record for the fastest tennis serve ever recorded, as his serve reached the mind-blowing speed of 263.4 km/h (Abdalazem, 2022). Although, the average tennis serve of both male and female players is somewhat slower, the speed and the margins with which professionals play the game is sensational. It, however, makes the job of the tennis umpires and line referees much more difficult, as one wrong line call can cost the players millions of prize money. This is where the AI supported by sensors and IoT comes to rescue. The so-called “hawk-live” system is already widely implemented at the largest tennis tournaments, such as Australian and US Open (Michaels, 2021). The system is using multiple sensors and cameras to track the movement and the bounces of the ball. The tracking data is then uploaded to the predefined model that imitates the tennis court and the trained AI system can decide whether the ball landed in or out of the court lines (Abusalah, 2021). The system can also generate an animated video replay of the ball trajectory and the final mark the ball leaves on the court, for the players, the umpire, and the viewers to get a visual confirmation of the decision (Abusalah, 2021).
It used to be that for each tennis game, typically there would have to be one main chair umpire, overseeing the whole game, and six line umpires, responsible for calling the outs on the assigned lines. However, thanks to the technologies, now tournaments are allowed to reduce the number of referees required to facilitate the game to only one – the chair umpire.
But if technologies continue to disrupt the game, does it mean that in the future the main umpires can also be replaced by an electronic AI-driven judge? This is still very unlikely, as the job of the umpire is not only about keeping track of the score and calling outs, but is also about controlling the crowd, helping the players and many other tasks that we still cannot replace with technology.
References:
Abdalazem, R. (2022, July 8). What is the fastest tennis serve ever recorded? Diario AS. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://en.as.com/other_sports/what-is-the-fastest-tennis-serve-ever-recorded-n/#:~:text=Who%20recorded%20the%20fastest%20tennis,%2D6%2C%203%2D6.
Abusalah, M. (2021, February 16). IOT replaces on-court line umpires in Australia open tennis. Medium. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/iot-replaces-on-court-line-umpires-in-australia-open-tennis-bf6c84f82c12
Michaels, J. (2021, February 13). ‘there are just no mistakes happening’: Hawk-eye live gains more support at Australian Open. ESPN. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/30877297/hawk-eye-live-gains-more-support-australian-open
Very interesting article Ivan! Technologies can definitely help out in making fairer decisions especially during times when human error can be high and hard to make a decision in costing a player their play, winning prize, etc. I definitely agree that an umpire can’t be replaced completely as they facilitate in many areas just like in football, you need a human referee. But I do see how it can assist in improving the game as well as make things worse. This can also be seen with football, where VAR (Video Assistant Referee) has helped give fair decisions and also stop games and cause chaos taking the fun out of the “beautiful game.” I believe it’s finding that sweet spot between human and AI driven tools to improve the sports we love to watch. Overall, interesting and well written!
Hi Ivan, interesting topic! I’m not an avid watcher of tennis so hearing of these rules quickly reminds me of the goal line technology that was introduced a couple years ago. Here cameras are also used to determine if a ball did or did not cross the line and then sends a signal to the referee to indicate when a goal is scored. It always reminds me of a game between England and Germany where a Frank Lampard goal was clearly over the line but the referee didn’t see it, this was before goal line technology, and England went on to lose the game 4-1. However, there is speculation that if the goal was given the game might have had a very different outcome as it was very early in the game. I wonder if there have also been such controversial moments or decisions in tennis where the umpire makes a mistake that decided the outcome of a game or even a tournament?