Wimbledon serves up Hawk-Eye instant replay
England's Grand Slam tennis tournament follows U.S. and Australian opens in replacing loud Cyclops tech on a couple courts.
The high-speed multicamera technology, which tracks the trajectory of a moving ball, was first used at a Grand Slam tournament in the 2005 U.S. Open. It has also been successfully launched at the Australian Open.
At those tournaments, players can challenge two line calls per set. An instant replay is shown on large screens, allowing both the players and the spectators to watch whether the ball was in or out.
While both the U.S. Open and the Australian Open are contested on hard courts, Wimbledon is played on lush grass, where fast, skidding serves--particularly in the men's game--can dominate.
"We can confirm the introduction of Hawk-Eye," Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of the All England Club, told reporters Tuesday. "We are going to have some final testing on grass courts in May to make sure we've got it absolutely right.
"We will use it on Centre and Number One courts, and we have put in place two large screens on both courts," Ritchie said. "We will not use Cyclops on those two courts because we feel (that) to have conflicting technologies in use at the same time would be inappropriate. We will redeploy Cyclops on other courts."
Ritchie said they were still to decide how many challenges players would be allowed at the two-week championships, which begin on June 25, saying they could get more than they do elsewhere.
"There are slightly different circumstances on a grass court, and there are things we are discussing before we decide the protocol we are going to adopt.
"It's unlikely that they'll be unlimited challenges, but maybe we are looking to extend the limit. We want to extend the continuity of what has worked well at the American and Australian opens, but we're looking at alternatives as well."
While Hawk-Eye, which has been widely used in cricket, has been generally well-received by players, there have been some dissenting voices.
World No. 2 Rafael Nadal, runner-up at Wimbledon last year, blamed his defeat at this year's Dubai Tennis Championships by Mikhail Youzhny on the system after a crucial point was overturned in favor of his Russian opponent.
Roger Federer, the world No. 1 and Wimbledon champion for the past four years, has also gone on record saying he is against the technology being used.
The French Open does not plan to use Hawk-Eye to determine line calls, though television viewers will be able to see replays.