More often than not, technology is seen as the answer to a problem, sometimes one that people didn’t even know existed. However, the introduction of new technology can also come at a cost, introducing new variables and issues that weren’t expected. A prime example of this was seen at the 2025 Wimbledon tennis Grand Slam tournament, where players faced an interesting challenge – dealing with automated line calls.

Automated line calls in tennis are nothing new, and both the US Open and Australian Open were already using the system. But in 2025, Wimbledon broke with a tradition that had been in place for more than 100 years by removing human line judges, which shook up the tennis landscape in London. But with the new technology suffering a bumpy introduction at the Grand Slam, it left players criticising its presence.

Everyday AI

Artificial intelligence isn’t some distant concept anymore — it’s everywhere, from healthcare to streaming platforms and online entertainment. For example, online casino slot game providers like NetEnt and Microgaming are making the most of it. They’re using AI to improve and personalise player experiences, fine-tune game development, and provide faster, smarter customer support. The result? Smoother, more engaging games that actually adapt to how people play.

It’s the same story in sport. In tennis, AI-powered systems have taken over a job once reserved for humans — calling lines. It all kicked off when Hawk-Eye Live was trialled at the 2017 Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan. Just a few years later, the US Open had gone all in with electronic line calling.

Why Wimbledon Switched

First, why did Wimbledon break its tradition of having human line judges? A lot of the pressure came from the ATP, which introduced the Electronic Line Calling Live system on their Tour from 2025, with the women’s WTA also looking to make it a standardised, permanent fixture of the game as well. Wimbledon, therefore, decided to get in line and figured that the time was right to trust those calls of “out” and “fault” to technology instead of humans.

Did It Work?

There were some notable moments at Wimbledon 2025 when the AI line-calling technology caused some uproar. British players Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu were among the most vocal about it, insisting that the technology had made some contentious incorrect calls in their matches.

Raducana, for example, was left bitterly disappointed in a narrow defeat by top seed Aryna Sabalenka in the Third Round. During the closely contested match, the line calling system had ruled a serve from Sablenka in, but Raducanu had insisted it was “for sure out.”

There was another highly contentious moment in Sonay Kartal’s match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, which caused a long match delay. Kartal had hit a ball long beyond the baseline, but the technology failed to track it, so it never made the call. Had it done so, Pavlyuchenkova would have won the game. But instead, the point was replayed, and Kartal won it, further aggravating Pavlyuchenkova.

During another match involving America’s Ben Shelton, the players were informed that the AI was going to soon stop working because of poor light, and were encouraged to speed up play. There were also instances in other matches where players complained because they couldn’t hear the calls from the system.

Lack of Accuracy

There was a lack of 100% accuracy in the technology’s performance at SW19, and this remains an ongoing problem across the sport. Earlier this year in Madrid, German star Alexander Zverev was so incredulous that the technology had called his opponent’s ball “in” that he whipped out his phone and shared a picture of the mark where the ball had landed in the clay, which was outside of the white line.

The technology had clear failures at Wimbledon, but the Live Electronic Line Calling was cited as being ‘sufficiently robust’ in its current capacity, and that’s why it was introduced. That, presumably, means that in its current state, it is still better than human calls, but the technology will continue to be developed and improved to increase accuracy.

The Bigger Point

There were, of course, still mistakes happening when human line judges were making the calls at Wimbledon. Supporters of the AI technology will also point to the relatively few errors of judgment that the system made across all of the matches played at SW19 in 2015, and there are 127 matches in each Wimbledon draw, not counting the doubles and wheelchair tournaments.

But perhaps it’s more about what has been a move away from the reliance on line judges, where a certain degree of human error is expected. The real reason perhaps that AI gained notable complaints is because it is a technology designed to reduce those errors, and the potential for it making mistakes isn’t expected to be there, and if they are, then it renders the question of whether it’s an improvement at all.