Argggggggggggggh! Officials at the USTA, the parent organization of the United States Open tennis tournament, announced today that they would not be using electronic technology to enhance line calls at this year's grand slam tournament, which starts August 29.
The sad part of this is that this decision by the USTA has caused the organizers of the Australian Open and Wimbledon to drop plans to implement computer-enhanced line calling at their tournaments in 2006.
Men's world number #1 Roger Federer is against the technology. "I have a strong opinion about it. I'm absolutely against it. I think it's going to cost too much money. We can use that for other reasons than a couple of calls a match."
Women's world number #1 Lindsay Davenport has a more nuanced position."Players have to know that the system is 100% accurate," she said. "If they can promise the players that, then that would be nice, but I don't know if they're going to be able to do that."
The Mad Professah thinks its absolutely insupportable that the television audience and the attending audience will have divergent experiences of particular line calls. A horrific line call against Serena Williams in her 2004 Quarterfinal match against Jennifer Capriati still rankles and I haven't attended the U.S. Open since 2002. I think there should be a boycott of the Grand Slams by tennis fans until a reasonable technological solution is implemented.
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