Finally! The governing body of tennis, the International Tennis Federation, in conjunction with the Women's Tennis Association and the Association of Tennis Professionals as well as the Grand Slam committee (which organizes the four annual major tournaments) have agreed on a standard, common protocol for electronic line calling.
Starting at next week's Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, there will be three (incorrect) player challenges per set, with an extra challenge added during the tiebreak. If the player is correct in the challenge to a call, they do not lose it. In matches where sets are not decided by a tiebreak, the number of challenges re-sets to 3 each after every twelve games.
Although three challenges is better than the two that player's have been working with at the U.S. Open and most other tournaments, I am in the camp of Mary Carillo. Why should there be any limit to the challenges a player makes? If the umpire feels that the player is abusing the system, they should have the authority to give them a warning "You are abusing the challenge system, from now on you will have 3 challenges remaining." And that would solve the problem.
Eventually software and hardware will improve so that a computer will be able to call every line anyway.
1 comment:
Thanks for the update on this, it seems like a good thing, but, I did cringe when i saw Mary Carillo's name, usually I mute her! Like this week with Justin Gimblstob and that horrible coverage of Indian Wells on Fox.
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