Instant Replay Review Comes to Tennis

Tennis is the latest sport to add video reviews of close calls:

The scoreboard promptly displayed a computer video replay showing the ball landing an inch or two wide of the sideline. “OUT,” the screen read, meaning the call stood…As expected, each review in the opening match took less than 10 seconds. WTA Tour executive Angie Cunningham said the ball landed within 3 centimetres of the line on each of the challenged rulings.

10 seconds is pretty fantastic, and seems to imply no human intervention. A common complaint about video reviews is that they tend to drain the life out of an exciting game, while the officials spend precious minutes hunkered around a monitor.

The official name is ‘Hawkeye officiating electronic line-calling technology’, but my 37-second search didn’t turn up the company that developed the technology. Bad tech company! I did locate one of their competitors, which has some nifty photos of how their system works.

While in Scotland, I watched a very exciting 6 Nations rugby match between Ireland and England. Ireland won in a squeaker, after a video review. I was surprised to see this, as I was under the impression that it was a North American phenomenon.

I’ve always thought that football…er…soccer ought to apply a technological solution to solve the vexing offsides problem (the linesmen must be looking in two places–as much as fifty yards apart–simultaneously). Every soccer fan I’ve talked to about this thinks it’s a stupid idea. I imagine I’d have the same luck with baseball fans.