New Nows: Jamie Murray and Andy Murray Share Beautiful Childhood photos
They say everyone remembers their first Wimbledon, but mine was so far back that it’s a bit of a blur. It was 1982, the year that Jimmy Connors beat John McEnroe, and I had tickets to Centre Court. But what made it special for me was the opening week: it was my first Wimbledon as a line judge, and since then I’ve officiated there in all but two of the tournaments. So when I heard on Wednesday that the tournament is replacing us line judges with electronic line calling, I was gutted. It hurt even more because I only found out when it was announced in the news and my phone started pinging with people asking me how I felt. I used to play a
I imagine the All England Club has made this decision because the players want the consistency of computerised decisions – though several of them didn’t like Hawk-Eye at all when it came in. But there’s so much that a human line judge does that a computer just can’t offer. We certainly keep up tennis’s traditions – I think we make the court look fully dressed. And spectators can learn a lot about the game when they can see the discussions between a line judge and the chair umpire. All of that will be lost. I’m not saying we never make mistakes – we’re human, after all. But we hold ourselves to a very high standard. You have to be utterly impartial – even when Andy Murray is about to
