The Grand Slam which will take place at the All England Club will eliminate linesmen and replace them with an automatic system.
On July 14, Carlos Alcaraz soundly beats Novak Djokovic in three sets and wins the 2024 Wimbledon title, the traditional third grand slam of the season, to the applause of the spectators present on the central court of the All England Club. This duel will go down in history not only because it was the fourth trophy in a major tournament for the 21-year-old Spaniard, but also because it was the last won in this competition with the linesmen traditional.
According to information provided by the agency EFEfor the next edition the 300 judges who were in charge of the judicial lines will be removed and replaced by an automatic system, ELC (for its acronym in English). This will mark an unprecedented change in the 147-year history of the competition taking place on London turf.
With this modification, the three opinions per set that tennis players have will also be taken into account, as the ball will be called within a tenth of a second from the moment it bounces on the court. However, the work of chair umpires will continue.
While this may seem like a drastic change, it is worth noting that Wimbledon is the third Grand Slam who adopts this measure. The Australian Open and the US Open have already done this. In fact, the US tournament started implementing it during the Covid pandemic, in 2020.
With this, of the big four, only Roland-Garros remains to adhere to this new measure, even if the organization of the French event did not want to apply it because the mark of the ball remains on clay.
More changes
This is not the only change that the London tournament will have for its 2025 edition. Also this Wednesday it was announced that Wimbledon had changed the schedule of the finals.
Specifically, it delayed the women’s and men’s singles finals by two hours and placed the doubles finals before those matches. The reason? Making it a more user-friendly program for the general public in the United States, since these meetings were taking place in the morning in that country.
“We have adjusted the provisional schedule for the final weekend of Wimbledon with the ambition of improving the experience for everyone involved. Doubles players will have greater certainty about what time they play and fans will enjoy the day. in crescendo until the men’s and women’s finals arrive, with our champions crowned in front of the largest global audience possible,” said Sally Bolton, CEO of All England Club.
Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
