This is the loudest Centre Court has been all week. They know one of the best matches of these Championships is unfolding.
They’re wrong to cheer but don’t know it yet, as the controversial removal of line judges at Wimbledon – and thus their clear hand signals for shots both narrowly in or out – means there is no obvious and immediate visual cue to tell the spectators otherwise.
The ELC was hard to hear given the Centre Court noise on Friday (Photo: Getty)The cheers turn to groans, meaning after attending Wimbledon twice as a fan before covering the Championships for work from 2018, some 130 matches later this year’s tournament is offering something new.
We’ll get to Sunday’s debacle shortly, while this point was far from being an isolated incident in terms of volume issues, and it has required some adjustment knowing the line judges are not there as the clearest cue.
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Most of the 15,000 inside Centre Court though cannot see this screen, and it is not only hampering the spectator experience but bothering the players as well.
“The voice, I cannot really hear it, it is a bit too low,” she said. “I just want to hear it clearly. [The line judges’] voice is a lot more loud than the automatic one so we can hear that clearly.”
“That call was for sure out,” Raducanu said after her defeat to Sabalenka, referencing a point in the seventh game of the first set.
Fellow British No 1 Draper said after his defeat to Marin Cilic that he does not think ELC is “100 per cent accurate”, while Tokyo 2020 champion Belinda Bencic added “I also don’t trust it”.
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“It’s funny, isn’t it, because when we did have linesmen, we were constantly asked why we didn’t have electronic line calling because it’s more accurate than they do the rest of the tour,” she told BBC.
It is also worth noting that were Raducanu or Draper to have challenged a line judges’ call, the point would then have been referred to the Hawk-Eye technology anyway – the very system they are questioning.
As for the accuracy? That is a matter for the AELTC, but having tested the system vigorously since late May, there is no chance of a return to line judges based on one tournament where some players have complained.
Clearly, though, it remains a work in progress, with the ELC’s teething problems seen during Sonay Kartal’s defeat to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Sunday.
'They stole the game from me' Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova wasn't happy when #Wimbledon's electronic line-calling system failed pic.twitter.com/JA0WIYSccD
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 6, 2025Pavlyuchenkova fumed, and went on to accuse the umpire of favouring the Briton having ordered them to replay the point.
Ironically, this incident down to “human error” back at “Ball Traffic Control”, a bunker within Wimbledon where a 50-strong team are monitoring ELC, where the system had in fact been accidentally turned off the whole game.
There is work to be done, but it will evidently remain in use on one of sport’s biggest stages, making for the prospect of further delays, technology and humans at odds, players made to wait and fans left in the dark.
Now where have we heard that before.
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