Paris – Welcome to the judges in the final stands of the line. They are a dying breed in tennis, but at the French Open, organizers hope to keep the inevitable tide of electronic line calls (ELCs) wherever possible.
There are points contested in almost every match here at Roland Garros. The process is the same. A call is made, the player protests, the referee descends from the lofty perch, the player emphasizes the mark with a racket, and the referee makes a call. It is the theatre – sometimes leading to subversive calls. Mira Andreva had one in one match in the first round of her match against Christina Bussa on Tuesday, and was angry at her box when her plea to overturn was ignored.
This year, Wimbledon will be using electronic line calls. The line judge is no longer there, leaning between points, placing the noise in your throat as the ball swings the size of the line. The Australian Open introduced the technology in 2021, and the US Open followed suit in 2022. It leaves the French open as the last thing to do with this human touch.
Several tournaments on clay employ ELC and had early issues. There was a call for technology and human eyes to not coincide. In Madrid, Alexander Zverev took a photo of Alejandro Davidevich Fokina.
“I’ll talk to the supervisor. Like I said, this is not normal, so I’ll talk to the ATP,” Zverev said afterwards. “For a mistake like this to happen, yes, one or two millimeters I understand, but 4 or 5 centimeters is not normal.” The ATP then moved to clarify the tennis TV post about this. Given the dynamic surface of the clay ball mark, it points to a difficult-to-read method.
Look at another call š§https://t.co/t0hhsl3yjc pic.twitter.com/lxdnuaqg6t
– Tennis TV (@tennistv) April 27, 2025
There are also many controversies in the tournament that still use human touches. Elsewhere, Aryna Sabalenka took a picture of Stuttgart’s phone in the quarter-finals with Elise Mertens. This was the shot she felt but was called.
“Yeah, it definitely went in,” she said afterwards. “I understand. I mean, everyone can make mistakes. I’m not the one who complains to the judge… (but) if you make a mistake, I think you need courage to admit it and make a call.”
Meanwhile, tournament organizers and game stakeholders are creating educational videos showing why the human eye can be deceived by the marks left by Clay’s ball bounce and trajectory. “I think there’s a bit of adjustment,” Casper Rood said. “I think there was a pretty bad error in Zverev Match in Madrid. I’ve seen other things. I thought the tutorial video posted by ATP was (well) explained.”
Roland Garros pushes back while the ELC’s appeal continues to get stronger. Jill Moreton, president of FFT, says the French Open will remain a human judge for as long as possible. “The system doesn’t seem perfect as to what happened in Madrid, what happened in Rome,” Moreton said. Moreton also spoke about how important Line Judges are as ambassadors for sports.
“I think we’re right to keep the judges and line judges at Roland Garros,” added Moreton. “In the case of Roland Garros, we want to keep the lineman as long as the players agree.”
After that, “Unless players come to us unanimously and say, “I don’t play without the machine,” I think there’s a great future ahead of us to maintain this style of judgement.”
However, the noise from players is increasing. Novak Djokovic was asked to give his thoughts on Monday. “First, I say that I understand people who are more traditionalists and prefer to judge the Rhine. I think it’s part of our culture and tradition that has been there for decades. But if you have to choose two technology advocates, I think it’s more accurate, it saves time, and maybe even fewer people in the courts.”
Coco Gauff agreed, saying, “If you have the technology, you need to use it.” But she said, “I’m not going to defend it here and promote it, but if I have a preference, I’ll choose to play on the court where the robots are making decisions.”
Rude said, “I think… I like calling the electric wires, I think it works very well. I’d say I like it.
There is still some support for Judge Rhine, primarily from French terms. Arthur Phil had previously issued his preference for the Human Line Judge, but Gael Monfils backed it before the tournament. “To be honest, we like to have things the old way… I think it’s a good thing to have a line judge here because that’s the way I grew up,” Monfils said.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is also a supporter of the human eye. “That makes clay special in a way. You can always review shots. Obviously, there’s no denying that electronic line calls are the future and everything is headed towards AI and artificial intelligence.
And for others? Well, there’s a bit too much flip-flop between the two ways. āTo be honest, I am very confused, I donāt know because I had a situation with the judges in Stuttgart and also had a tricky call on the Rome Hawkeye system.
Over the next two weeks, there may be a controversial match swing call that increases the noise in the ELC. It can also increase the uniformity noise using the technology across four slams. Roland Garros continues to resist the pull of AI and robots, how long has it been?
