When artificial intelligence makes its way onto the Wimbledon lawn this year, there are no plans to replace the linesmen. At least for now.
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As the tournament (July 3-16) approaches, the All England Club and tech giant IBM unveiled the new technologies that will be used during the competition on Wednesday.
One of these, an artificial intelligence, will provide commentary on highlights of matches on the official Wimbledon website and mobile app. The other will use the AI to determine the difficulty of the course and update it over the course of rounds, waiting for each individual player until a possible finale.
Every year, this important London gathering of world tennis attracts several thousand spectators, all fans of the strawberries and cream served there, the Pimm’s sipped there or the players’ all-white outfits.
“Wimbledon is the oldest Grand Slam tournament. Our traditions stretch back to 1877 and that’s one of the main reasons people continue to participate,” said Bill Jinks, Chief Technology Officer of the prestigious London tournament.
“But without technological innovation, we could not have stayed at the forefront of tennis,” he believes.
While the Australian Open and the US Open, among others, have already generally introduced the use of electronic referee systems since 2021, the men’s ATP tournament circuit announced in April that from 2025 its traditional linesmen, who are stationed on the premises, will also be replaced “to optimize the precision and consistency (of arbitration, editor’s note) between tournaments”.
Cannot replace McEnroe
Bill Jinks promises the latter will still be present at Wimbledon this season but cannot say if that will always be the case in the future.
“Linesman technology is evolving. Since 2007 we’ve been using the Hawk-Eye verification system (limited player video, editor’s note) and it works well. Who knows what the future will bring? “, he warns, but rules out the possibility of an artificial intelligence becoming the sole arbiter of the parties.
For Chris Clements, digital manager at the All England Club, the advancement of technology has transformed the way society consumes sport, while today it has been around since the release of tools like ChatGPT, the Californian company’s editorial content generator the AI in full swing is OpenAI or Midjourney, image creation software.
“When we were kids at Wimbledon, the whole family would gather in front of the TV in the living room,” he recalls. “Today it happens less often. We need to find another way to attract those who will embody the next generation of Wimbledon fans. »
This now involves “collecting massive amounts of data and turning it into insights that we can share with fans around the world through our digital platforms,” says Kevin Farrar, Head of Sport Partnerships for IBM UK and Ireland.
The goal then is to use that AI (which produces sports commentary) across the game for the categories that don’t typically benefit from it, namely veterans, juniors or wheelchair tennis. Without fully engaging in human intervention, he specifies.
“Replacing John McEnroe’s comments is impossible! ‘ he says of the former world number one-turned-TV commentator. “The human being, he continues, must always be present, it is only a matter of completing him. The challenge is to find the right balance between tradition and innovation. »