Given Roger Federer’s reservations, perhaps the defending Wimbledon champion
might not be the man to make the presentation. However, when the time comes
to issue an award for the person who has changed tennis the most in the
opening decade of the 21st century, Dr Paul Hawkins will figure prominently.
If adding to the entertainment of the paying public was the sole criterion,
Hawkins’s invention HawkEye would have few rivals. Each time the giant
screens prepare to reveal whether a shot is fair or foul, attention around
the stadium is rapt.
Television directors have long been devotees, as are umpires and line-judges,
firm in the belief that human sight is far from infallible and any form of
technology that can raise the percentage of accuracy is to be embraced. So
that leaves the players and, aside from Federer and the odd other dissenting
voice, the rank and file support the introduction of the line-call-ing
technology. HawkEye made a successful grass-court debut, give or take the
odd power cut, at the Artois Championships. Federer did not play at Queen’s,
but will be present when the system receives its ultimate endorsement as 20
cameras (10 on Centre Court and 10 on No 1) become tools of All England Club
officiating when play begins on the show courts at 1pm tomorrow.
The intricate installation of the cameras, computers and other technological
paraphernalia that contributes to HawkEye has dictated that 33-year-old
Hawkins has been a fixture at Wimbledon for much of the past three weeks,
allowing himself only the briefest of excursions across the Thames to see
how things were working at the Artois.
Yet when the first of the four competitors on the two show courts raises his
hand to request a challenge, Hawkins will hold his breath for the five
seconds required for a judgment to be delivered. “It will be quite a strange
feeling,” he says. “Rather like that schoolboy footballer who plays a match
each Saturday morning without any problem but then gets anxious because his
father has turned up on the touchline to watch.”
That first challenger could well be Federer, whose scepticism of the system is
well chronicled. Hawkins has long since decided it is best to respect the
world No 1’s views rather than argue with them, and he can find solace in
the fact that he sold HawkEye Innovations Ltd to the Wisden Group a year ago
for £5m while retaining his managing directorship.
It keeps Hawkins busy. Last year he estimates he worked 340 days, many of them
abroad, although recently he has been based in London. Extensive testing on
grass, under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation and the All
England Club, which required more than a little convincing despite the US
Open and Australian Open delivering glowing reports of the system, have
satisfied Hawkins that everything will be perfect. “At the risk of sounding
like Gordon Brown over my confidence of being able to take over new
responsibilities, the only problem I have with grass is my hay fever,” he
said.
Grass is nothing new to HawkEye because the system was employed at cricket
grounds long before tennis stadiums. “All the test evaluation has been
passed after various machines have fired balls at every possible line and
trajectory,” said Hawkins. “The changing colour of the grass throughout the
course of the tournament is not a problem and neither is the differing light
between the middle of the day and late in the evening.”
The need for a system such as HawkEye was never better underlined than during
Serena Williams’s controversial loss to Jennifer Capriati in the 2004 US
Open quarter-final. Television replays highlighted several poor line-calls
and the Portuguese umpire Mariana Alves was dismissed from the tournament.
HawkEye made its London debut at the BlackRock Masters event on the ATP’s
Champions Tour in December 2005. Four months later it was used at the Miami
Masters Series event, and since then players have come to expect it as a
fixture at all events other than those staged on clay courts, where the ball
leaves a discernable mark.
The players have also become more discerning when resorting to HawkEye. At
Flushing Meadows there were 141 challenges in the men’s singles, of which
less than a third were upheld, with an average of 3.52 challenges per match.
Four months later in Melbourne (admittedly on just one court rather than
three in New York) the players upped their game to achieve a success rate of
48.2%. However, issues have arisen not from the system’s accuracy, which is
claimed to be within 2-3mm, but with some players believing that umpires are
increasingly intimidated from making decisions by the technology.
Jonas Bjorkman, the experienced Swede who reached last year’s Wimbledon
semi-final at the age of 34, is a former president of the ATP Players’
Council. “We have got to make umpires believe they still have a worthwhile
job out there,” he said. “The biggest problem we have now is that the
umpires hide behind HawkEye. This is not good because if they are not going
to make judgments then we just might as well have a computer to keep the
score.”
Wimbledon’s new assistant referee, Gerry Armstrong, an umpire for more than 20
years, refutes such claims.
“Over the years I have been involved, a top-flight tennis match has become far
more professional and the players’ expectations of officiating has become
greater,” said Armstrong, the umpire who defaulted John McEnroe from the
1990 Australian Open. “I don’t feel intimidated by HawkEye when it comes to
making important decisions and if the need to overrule is there, I will
continue to do so.
“Like any new innovation, there was initially a degree of nervousness in some
areas but speaking on behalf of the 30 or so gold badge umpires in the game,
we all enjoy HawkEye and endorse it because it takes the potential of so
many confrontations out of the equation.”
Good call: HawkEye makes its debut at Wimbledon
Centre Court and No 1 court will feature the line-calling technology HawkEye
for the first time this year. It was introduced to Grand Slam tournaments at
the US Open last autumn and was used at the Australian Open in January. The
clay surface at Roland Garros means it is not required for the French Open
1 Ten cameras positioned around the court track the ball’s speed and
trajectory to an accuracy of 2mm-3mm allowing close calls to be checked
2 Using sophisticated image processing, the cameras’ output is
translated into a graphic depicting the ball’s flight and its exact point of
impact. It takes into account of both the skid of the ball and its
compression to determine where it bounced
3 Within five seconds of any debatable line call HawkEye’s virtual
replay will be transmitted to two large screens at courtside. The replay can
be shown from any angle and speed, leaving a ‘mark’ on the surface to show
which part of the ball came into contact with the court or the lines
4 Each player will be allowed three challenges per set to review line
calls. If the player is successful in his or her challenge, they retain the
same number of potential challenges. If the player is incorrect, a challenge
is lost. If a tie-break is required to settle a set, each player will
receive one additional challenge. Challenges cannot be carried over from one
set to another
Where to find HawkEye at Wimbledon
The cameras will sit at the top of the open stands on Centre Court. After last
year’s Championships, the Centre Court roof, originally erected in 1922, was
removed and the North Stand adjacent to Church Road was demolished, with a
replacement built during the winter. This year the capacity will remain at
13,800 but everyone, including those seated in the Royal Box, will be
exposed to the elements.
After the end of the tournament, builders will again move in to install the
immovable fixtures of the new roof that will be in place for next year’s
Championships. The translucent concertina-like sliding structure, that will
take 10 minutes to open and close when bad weather strikes, will be fully
functional in 2009
HawkEye stats
2006 US Open
Challenges:
Men: 141
Women: 53
Average per match:
Men: 3.52
Women: 1.66
Correct:
Men: 43 (31%)
Women: 19 (36%)
2007 Australian Open
Challenges:
Men: 122
Women: 72
Average per match:
Men: 4.88
Women: 2.77
Correct: Men: 60 (49%)
Women: 30 (41%)
March of the techno-refs
— Cricket umpires can check whether a batsman has been run out, whether the
ball crossed the boundary and whether a catch has been taken cleanly
— Rugby league has been using video referees since the start of Super
League in 1996 and rugby union has followed suit
— In American sport, the use of television aids is widespread. The
National Hockey League has video goal judges to decide if a score is
legitimate, while basketball and American football officials also make use
of TV replays
— But football still resists using technology that would prevent
injustices such as Tottenham not being awarded a goal against Manchester
United in 2005
How to follow Wimbledon
Log on to www.timesonline.
co.uk/wimbledon for extensive coverage of the Championships including
the following special features:
Live scoreboard Game-by-game updates from all the matches
Rafael Nadal exclusive The world No 2 is writing exclusively for Times
Online every day during Wimbledon – and answers your questions, too
The Wimbledon blog All the action and gossip in our rolling news
Barry Flatman’s Wimbledon diary The Sunday Times Tennis
Correspondent writes every day online
— The official Wimbledon website also has live scores and on-demand live
video for subscribers.
Visit www.wimbledon.org
TV details
— The BBC begins its comprehensive coverage of Wimbledon at noon
tomorrow on BBC2. Play will be screened, overlapping on both BBC1 and BBC2,
throughout the day until 8pm. Today at Wimbledon (Monday-Friday, BBC2, 8pm;
Saturday, BBC2 10.30pm) will give highlights of the day’s play
