French Open is picking humans over technology, Djokovic thinks that’s a bad call

A line judge makes a call as Russia’s Anastasia Pavliuchenkova plays China’s Zheng Qinwen during their first round match of the French Tennis Open at the Roland Garros stadium

For Novak Djokovic, this is a relatively easy call: He, like many players, thinks the French Open is making a mistake by eschewing the electronic line-calling used at most big tennis tournaments and instead remaining old school by letting line judges decide whether serves or other shots land in or out.

Plenty of sports, from soccer and baseball to the NFL, are replacing, or at least helping, officials with some form of high-tech replays or other technology. Tennis, too, is following that trend, except at Roland-Garros, where competition continues through June 8.

Even the longest-running and most tradition-bound of the majors, Wimbledon, is — gasp! — abandoning line judges and moving to an automatic system this year. The WTA and ATP added machine-generated rulings this season for tour events on red clay, the surface at the French Open. But Grand Slam hosts can do what they want, and the French tennis federation is keeping the human element.

Djokovic, the 24-time major champion scheduled to play his first-round match in Paris today [Macay time], understands why folks might prefer the way to keep things the way they were for more than a century in his sport. He gets why there could be an inclination to shy away from too much change in a world now drowning in cell phones and streaming and social media.

“You don’t want to give everything away to the technology, right? But if I have to choose between the two, I’m more of a proponent of technology. It’s just more accurate, saves time, and … (means) less people on the court” said Djokovic, 38, who was disqualified from the 2020 U.S. Open for inadvertently hitting an official with a ball hit out of frustration between games.

That edition of the tournament in New York only placed line judges on its two largest courts, while others used an electronic setup, a nod to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australian Open got rid of all line judges in 2021, a first at a tennis major; the U.S. Open did the same later that year.

The French Open remains a holdout, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

Don’t expect electronic line-calling at Roland Garros in the near future

“Unless the players are unanimous and come to us and say, ‘We won’t play if there isn’t a machine’ … then I think we’ve got a great future ahead of us to maintain this style of refereeing,” French federation president Gilles Moretton said, while boasting of the quality of his country’s officials.

Players don’t sound that adamant, although they tend to echo the opinion of 2023 U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff, who is 21: “I mean, I don’t know if it’s like the ‘Gen Z’ in me, but I think if we have the technology, we should use it.”

Still, there is some charm to be found in the choreography of players insisting a call was wrong and chair umpires climbing down for a closer look at a ball mark on the clay. Watch a day of TV coverage from Paris and odds are good that dance will take place — probably more than once. HOWARD FENDRICH, PARIS, MDT/AP