ATP Changes ELC Review Rules

[jimlosaltos]

After a ELC malfunction in a first-round match at the Cincinnati Open between Americans Taylor Fritz and Brandon Nakashima exposed a poorly thought-out protocol the ATP has issued a rule change.

First, here's the incident per the Guardian: During what was ultimately a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4) win for Nakashima, he hit a forehand that was comfortably out and would have seen him down 30-40, facing a break point. But no 'out' call came from the ELC. The players therefore carried on, even though Fritz looked up when returning the ball as if to suggest that he knew it was out. He hit a forehand and the rally carried on for a few more shots before 'stop, stop, stop' was heard as a review official acknowledged the error. Fritz was noticeably annoyed when they were told to replay the point due to 'technical error', despite hawk-eye proving that the ball was out. You can see the incident on YouTube in this 2:17 minute vid.
ATP Officiating Update: After recent technical issues with Live ELC in Montreal and Cincinnati, we have conducted a thorough review of our protocols. Going forward, if the Review Official determines during a rally that a ball was out earlier in the point (but was not called by the system), that decision will stand.

In English, if you hit the ball out you lose the point. Shocking concept! Meanwhile, others are asking why ELC keeps malfunctioning when in 4 months it is due to be rolled out across every tournament.

Some people are criticizing the chair umpires but they have to follow the rules. Now changed, one hopes adequately

Another question is why the ATP did not foresee this kind of machine malfunction and have some process for handling it.

One more question: If humans have to review the ELC for errors, is that better than having humans make the call in the first ball and have HawkEye or equivalent as a backup to appeals? The ATP seems to be assuming ELC is flawless. Anyone who's observed "hallucinations" by the likes of Chat GPT and other Generative AI betas getting heavily promoted, knows that ain't so.

Might as well embed the play here:

#

[stotty]

The bottomline is Hawkeye on the whole is significantly more reliable than a linesman. I went to Wimbledon one year, in the 70's, and one of the linemen fell asleep. The line calling back then was horrendous. One thing we have to thank Jimmy, Mac and Nasty for is for bringing up the standard of linesman, and umpires. Those guys kept everyone on their toes.

[jimlosaltos]

The bottomline is Hawkeye on the whole is significantly more reliable than a linesman. I went to Wimbledon one year, in the 70's, and one of the linemen fell asleep. The line calling back then was horrendous. One thing we have to thank Jimmy, Mac and Nasty for is for bringing up the standard of linesman, and umpires. Those guys kept everyone on their toes.

Hah! I can't imagine a lines person falling asleep during a Mac or Nasty match. Too loud for one thing, secondly likely to be dangerous <g>

I believe ELC is more accurate. But given tennis' approach of zero transparency and no objective, third party data, we don't know how accurate or what its biases and types of errors are.

Major League Baseball uses a far more complex version, including 3D tracking of all players, ball trajectories and much more. But also openly reviews the data and has third parties study it.

Transparency cures many problems.

P.S. Among my favorite baseball Statcast tricks is the channel that tracks a squirrel that regularly appears at games between innings giving real-time instantaneous speed readouts on the little guy's sprint across the infield.