World’s No.1 tennis player Novak Djokovic is advocating for some major changes in tennis. Speaking with reporters at French Open over the weekend, Djokovic argued that line judges in tennis should be made obsolete in favor of technology.
According to Djokovic, having technology instead of judges would improve the sport.
“The technology is so advanced right now, there is absolutely no reason why you should keep line umpires on the court. That’s my opinion,” said Djokovic, who advanced to fourth-round of 2020 the tournament with an easy 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 win over Daniel Elahi Galán on Saturday. “Of course, I understand technology is expensive, so it’s an economic issue and a question mark. But I feel like we are all moving towards that, and sooner or later there is no reason to keep line umpires.”
The majority of the tournaments rely on technology, known as Hawk-Eye, to make close calls but only if they are challenged by a player. In all other cases, it is the line judge that makes the call. Recently, several events experimented with using Hawk-Eye almost exclusively, but this isn’t expected to become a norm.
On the other side, tournaments that take place on clay, which includes the French Open, don’t use technology at all.
“I really don’t see a reason why every single tournament in this world, in this technologically advanced era, would not have what we had during the Cincinnati/New York tournaments,” Djokovic added.
It isn’t surprising that, out of all people, Novak Djokovic is the one asking to get rid of line judges. During the 2020 US Open, Djokovic slammed the ball in frustration towards the back end of the court and hit one line judge in the throat. This caused him to be defaulted from the tournament and stopped him from winning an easy Grand Slam title with the majority of his rivals missing the event.
