Due to the coronavirus pandemic, tennis events had to minimize the number of people on the court. This is why some events decided to remove the line judges and instead use Hawk-Eye live. The Cincinnati Open and the ATP Finals used it, and it worked incredibly well. This is why Novak Djokovic called for the system to replace line judges completely.

Back in October, he had said,

“With all my respect for the tradition and the culture we have in this sport, when it comes to people present on the court during a match, including line umpires, I really don’t see a reason why every single tournament in this world, in this technological advanced era, would not have what we had during the Cincinnati/New York tournament.”

Patrick McEnroe Supports Novak Djokovic

After Djokovic’s statements, many people have been asked about the new Hawk-Eye live systems and whether it could completely replace line judges. Patrick McEnroe was one of them and he said,

“I think at the highest level of pro tennis, we’ll probably be seeing less and less line judges. Not all the smaller events can afford to have the hawk-eye system which is fairly expensive.”

In the interview, McEnroe also gave his thoughts on whether he supports the removal of line judges.

“In this time when you are trying to limit the number of people on-site, it doesn’t make sense to have line judges because that’s just a lot of extra people you don’t need…Hawk-Eye system just works extremely well.”

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Clearly, many people prefer this use of Hawk-Eye live instead of line judges. However, there are many who don’t support it. In the future, the governing bodies of tennis will hear arguments from both sides and based on it, make the best decision.

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