To Hawk-Eye It
January 25th 2007 13:01
In the Australian Open this year something was given to players never before given to them, the ability to officially challenge calls made on the tennis courts.
Players can challenge verdicts where their shots are called out, or that of their opponent is called as in by the lines people or umpire. They get two incorrect chances at it per set, so long as they are correct and their challenges are upheld they can keep challenging.
When a player challenges a human made verdict, Hawk-Eye is brought into the picture. It is a near perfect system that determines wether the ball is in or out and displays it in a computer animation. It is more or less accurate and at least far more accurate than that of what lines people will call.
This has proven vital as in one case where a player had lost the match, but who challanged the final call after which the Hawk-Eye reply showed it was actually in his favor which debunked the linesman call and kept him in the game. He went on and won. Talk about coming back from the brink.
Critics of Hawk-Eye include the one and only Roger Federer, he mentions that he’s "not a big fan of it. I think it's nonsense anyway in the first place", and goes on to say that it simply is an easy way out for umpires not do their jobs.
The most scathing comment said about Hawk-Eye comes from Federer, where he says that "They [chair umpires] tend to now just let us do the work, the tough stuff. They let us get embarrassed basically with the two challenges there to be used."
Federer has a terrible record of challenges, up until the Australian open out of five challenges he had made he had only gotten one right, but it doesn’t appear that he is simply bad at seeing if he’s in or out. The way he asks for the challenge makes it look like he’s simply trying to show how bad the shot was, often times he challenges shots that were clearly out.
However in the Australian Open game against Andy Rodick, Federer used his challenges to his advantage and correctly challenged calls made by the lines people.
Myself, I don’t agree with the system, I think it is up to the umpire, and I think that mistakes simply add the flavour to games, not take away from them. So let’s all just live and let die, let everyone do what they are supposed to and not allow any overlapping.
I’m not saying Hawk-Eye should be canned all together, it is still quite a cool piece of technology for the commentary box, so that crazily obsessed people such as me can go crazy at the linesmen for incorrect calls made.
Players can challenge verdicts where their shots are called out, or that of their opponent is called as in by the lines people or umpire. They get two incorrect chances at it per set, so long as they are correct and their challenges are upheld they can keep challenging.
Typical Hawk-Eye Replay in Tennis
This has proven vital as in one case where a player had lost the match, but who challanged the final call after which the Hawk-Eye reply showed it was actually in his favor which debunked the linesman call and kept him in the game. He went on and won. Talk about coming back from the brink.
Critics of Hawk-Eye include the one and only Roger Federer, he mentions that he’s "not a big fan of it. I think it's nonsense anyway in the first place", and goes on to say that it simply is an easy way out for umpires not do their jobs.
The most scathing comment said about Hawk-Eye comes from Federer, where he says that "They [chair umpires] tend to now just let us do the work, the tough stuff. They let us get embarrassed basically with the two challenges there to be used."
Federer has a terrible record of challenges, up until the Australian open out of five challenges he had made he had only gotten one right, but it doesn’t appear that he is simply bad at seeing if he’s in or out. The way he asks for the challenge makes it look like he’s simply trying to show how bad the shot was, often times he challenges shots that were clearly out.
However in the Australian Open game against Andy Rodick, Federer used his challenges to his advantage and correctly challenged calls made by the lines people.
Hawk-Eye can be used to log statistics and interesting tid bits in games
I’m not saying Hawk-Eye should be canned all together, it is still quite a cool piece of technology for the commentary box, so that crazily obsessed people such as me can go crazy at the linesmen for incorrect calls made.
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Comment by Jay
I disagree. Mistakes by the players, maybe. Mistakes by the umpires? I don't see how that can add to the game in any way...
Having said that I don't necessarily agree that the new challenge system is the best idea either (not that I know how it works, but I'll keep typing anyway). The chair umpire should be responsible for challenging a ruling by any other umpire. If the player wants to challenge a call they should appeal to the chair umpire. That way the responsibility of challenging incorrect calls doesn't lie solely with the player.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
I think it adds to the game because it just makes you so raw and passionate about it that much more when theres an incorrect call made out 'WTF!? THAT WAS IN!'
Comment by Jay
I'm for ditching line judges altogether in favour of a perfect system as you suggest. If we need excitement we can tell the computer to randomly throw some incorrect calls into the mix and see who spots them
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Imagine you wake up oneVmorning and the toaster is complaining about how the vacum cleaner won't shuttup about it (his?) ex-girlfriend the dust buster turned lesbian-feminist activist who wants to change the female/male naming of power sockets because it is obscene and rude that the male socket gets all the electricity out of the female socket. Stuff like that...
human errors are so much organic, like a machine can't be racist or blind, but humans can, so we can accuse them of heinous things and feel good about ourselves.
Inslting cold hard machines works, but doesn't feel as good as insulting humanbeings.