Tennis players criticize AI technology used by Wimbledon

Some tennis players are not happy with Wimbledon’s new AI line judges, as reported by The Telegraph. 

This is the first year the prestigious tennis tournament, which is still ongoing, replaced human line judges, who determine if a ball is in or out, with an electronic line calling system (ELC).

Numerous players criticized the AI technology, mostly for making incorrect calls, leading to them losing points. Notably, British tennis star Emma Raducanu called out the technology for missing a ball that her opponent hit out, but instead had to be played as if it were in. On a television replay, the ball indeed looked out, the Telegraph reported. 

Jack Draper, the British No. 1, also said he felt some line calls were wrong, saying he did not think the AI technology was “100 percent accurate.”

Player Ben Shelton had to speed up his match after being told that the new AI line system was about to stop working because of the dimming sunlight. Elsewhere, players said they couldn’t hear the new automated speaker system, with one deaf player saying that without the human hand signals from the line judges, she was unable to tell when she won a point or not. 

The technology also met a blip at a key point during a match this weekend between British player Sonay Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, where a ball went out, but the technology failed to make the call. The umpire had to step in to stop the rally and told the players to replay the point because the ELC failed to track the point. Wimbledon later apologized, saying it was a “human error,” and that the technology was accidentally shut off during the match. It also adjusted the technology so that, ideally, the mistake could not be repeated.

Debbie Jevans, chair of the All England Club, the organization that hosts Wimbledon, hit back at Raducanu and Draper, saying, “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.” 

We’ve reached out to Wimbledon for comment.

This is not the first time the AI technology has come under fire as tennis tournaments continue to either partially or fully adopt automated systems. Alexander Zverev, a German player, called out the same automated line judging technology back in April, posting a picture to Instagram showing where a ball called in was very much out. 

The critiques reveal the friction in completely replacing humans with AI, making the case for why a human-AI balance is perhaps necessary as more organizations adopt such technology. Just recently, the company Klarna said it was looking to hire human workers after previously making a push for automated jobs.