Wimbledon has replaced all his line judges with a success. The only problem is that tennis players do not believe it

Wimbledon has replaced This year for the first time in its history to its line judges for a technology that is an evolution of the traditional eye of the hawk. Despite the accuracy it brings, several tennis players They have expressed their discontentespecially following the controversy with the party of Kartal and Pavlyuchenkova.

What’s happening. Several tennis players have publicly expressed their doubts about the electronic system. Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, the British numbers, have questioned the accuracy of decisions, while the Switzerland Belinda Bencic It was more direct: “I do not trust the system. Nor is it that I want to speak it too much, but it is really stressful.”

The reluctance about this new system are increasingly common in tennis. Although the hawk’s eye has accompanied the games for many years already, The replacement of the judges It marks a general discontent in several professionals of this sport and fans. AND The case of Pavlyuchenkova He has put the situation more inri.

Failure in three key situations. The incident that has been playing the most in networks was during the match between the British Sonay Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on the central track. With the marker matched 4-4, a Kartal ball clearly came out, but the Hawk-Eye system remained silent. Without the usual sound signal of “out”, the referee ordered to repeat the point, causing The frustration of Pavlyuchenkova: “You have stolen the game.” The ruling lasted 6 minutes and 49 seconds, during which the system lost three decisions.

The AI ​​is working. The organization has revealed that the problem of Pavlyuchenkova was actually a human error: an operator accidentally deactivated part of the cameras with a click on their computer. Sally Bolton, executive director of All England Club, He has defended that “the ball monitoring system has worked optimally and effectively” throughout the tournament. After the incident, they have modified the software so that the cameras cannot be deactivated manually when there is an ongoing game.

How the system works. The Live Electronic Line Calling (Live Elc) that Wimbledon uses is An evolution of the traditional hawk eye that we have been seeing since 2007. The key difference is that it now works in real time: use a network of cameras with artificial vision that tracks the ball and automatically emits an “out” when it goes out. Before, the hawk’s eye was only used to review decisions when players requested it; Now he is the main referee of all lines.

It has been working for years. Studies show that electronic systems in sport are significantly more precise than human judges. An investigation He revealed that line referees make mistakes in 27% of cases where the check -up review is required, which is equivalent to an error every 17.4 games. The system has demonstrated its reliability in multiple sports for more than a decade, and both the Australian Open and the US Open have integrated it in its entirety in recent years.

AI and arbitration, whenever complaints. Resistance to technology in arbitration is not exclusive to tennis. THE VAR IN FOOTBALL It generates constant controversies. In addition, Hawk-Eye is also implemented in volleyball, Cricket, and even in football for ghost goals, situations in which there has also been controversy with technology. And it is that sport is usually very reticating to technological changes.

We don’t trust technology. Machines fail less than humans, but Perception is usually different. And it is that many problems attributed to AI are actually errors in the implementation or in human decisions that accompany the system, as has happened this time in Wimbledon.

Technology is not infallible, but it is statistically more reliable than any available human alternative. And why don’t we trust? According to Gina Neff, a teacher in Cambridge, “right now, in many areas in which AI affects our lives, we believe that humans understand the context much better than machines,” he says. “The machine makes decisions based on the set of rules for which it has been programmed. But people are really good when it comes to multiple external values ​​and considerations as well – what is the right decision may not seem like the fair decision,” he continues. “It is the intersection between people and systems that we have to do well.” “We have to use the best of both to make the best decisions.”

Cover image | Shep Mcallister

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