I have been a Wimbledon line judge for 40 years. They could have told us machines will do the job next year | Wendy Smith
I saw Andy Murray win, and intervened when Andre Agassi swore. A computer may be consistent, but tennis needs the human touch
They say everyone remembers their first Wimbledon, but mine was so far back that it’s a bit of a blur. It was 1982, the year that Jimmy Connors beat John McEnroe, and I had tickets to Centre Court. But what made it special for me was the opening week: it was my first Wimbledon as a line judge, and since then I’ve officiated there in all but two of the tournaments. So when I heard on Wednesday that the tournament is replacing us line judges with electronic line calling, I was gutted. It hurt even more because I only found out when it was announced in the news and my phone started pinging with people asking me how I felt.
I used to play a lot of tennis when I was younger, and when you play junior tournaments you end up umpiring each other’s games. It was at a tournament at Wembley, sponsored by Benson & Hedges, where I saw an advert from the Professional Tennis Umpires Federation (PTUF) calling for new members, and I thought I’d give it a go. I had about 30 minutes’ training at the Queen’s Club in west London and I was in. The PTUF was run by ex-military types then and they were very particular about how you stood, sat and walked on to court. They wouldn’t put up with any slouching.
Wendy Smith has been a tennis line judge since 1979. She runs a florist supplies business in Suffolk
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