The courts
The most notable change at this year’s championships brings it in line with the majority of ATP and WTA tournaments, along with two of the other three grand slam tournaments: the abandonment of line judges in favour of electronic line calling. The technology allowing challenges was first introduced in 2007, but will now be utilised to automatically call all outs, faults, and foot faults. Wimbledon say the system is almost failsafe, and that in the qualifying at Roehampton this year it broke just once for one point. For longer malfunctions, they have a team of reserve line judges on hand. They are among a team of 80 match assistants, with two on each court helping with tasks including escorting the players for toilet breaks. The traditional start time of 2pm for the women’s and men’s singles finals is also set to change, beginning at 4pm, after the day’s doubles finals as opposed to preceding them. This is also in line with other grand slams.
