Here’s an interesting statistic. Not one of the top three men’s seeds features on the list of top 20 fastest serves so far this Championships.
Not Novak. Not Roger. Not Andy. Stan Wawrinka, the No. 4 seed, only makes joint 12th with Gael Monfils for a 137mph effort in a whizz-list topped by Sam Groth at 147mph.
This fact serves to emphasise that it is brains not brawn that make a champion. The best in the game have guile, a mastery of shots and big-point strength of mind that enables them to beat the guys capable of hitting the ball at a speed that is beyond the ability of the human eye to track.
The speed of those serves, is of course measured by IBM.
But what if the serve is ever so slightly in or out? That’s where Hawk-Eye comes in.
Murray’s four-set defeat of Ivo Karlovic – who ranks joint fifth in the fastest serve chart – could also easily have gone to a fifth set were it not for a pivotal call on break point. The electronic line-calling system proved that a Karlovic shot called “in” had in fact gone wide by scarcely a millimetre.
“Hawk-Eye's great,” said Murray. “I've been playing under Hawk-Eye for like 10 years now and obviously I can't remember all of the ones that have gone for me and against me. But that was a very important one.”
Now in its ninth year officiating at Wimbledon – and for the first time operating across all six Show Courts – Hawk-Eye operates at more than 95 tennis events around the world.
“Over the course of a year, 30 per cent of challenges are proved correct,” says Luke Aggas, Director of Tennis at Hawk-Eye Innovations.
How does electronic replay work? The technology uses cameras and mathematical calculation to determine the position of the ball. To be precise, 10 cameras on each court capture high-resolution running frameworks at a speed of 60 frameworks per second.
Every single shot of the entire Championships is tracked. In a 50-shot rally, Hawk-Eye technology will capture all the information for every shot, which adds up to an indispensable databank for broadcasters.
So, the data for every point is captured in a file as a single piece of information. This is done irrespective of whether a player challenges a call. Each point is assessed to check all 10 cameras are doing their job.
If a player does challenge, the answer to the queried call pops up on a screen, for example “20mms in” and the visual replay is ready to be displayed on the big screen five to 10 seconds after the call was made.
On each court, the process involves four people working from a commentary booth: two Hawk-Eye people, one big-screen operator (who puts up the scoreboard, public information messages as well as the Hawk-Eye replay as required) and one review official for player confidence.
The review official is a certified umpire who sits alongside the technical team. In unusual circumstances – for example, if the screen goes black – the review official contacts the umpire to apologise for being unable to display the visual replay and pass on the vital info. “I have the answer here. It was x mms in or out.”
The system is calibrated to the lines of the court. The 26 members of the Hawk-Eye team on site are among the few people authorised to go on the grass.
“We are here for a week before the start of The Championships. We measure the lines of the court in millimetres. We also measure for any slight undulations in the court surface,” Aggas explains. “Grass being a natural surface, the lines are repainted so we go through that measuring process several times throughout the tournament.”
At the time of writing on the second Tuesday, 787 challenges have been made – roughly 98 in the course of a day – which makes 236 points overturned.
That total will accelerate throughout the day: players are most likely to challenge towards the end of a match.
Fewest challenges come in encounters between fellow countrymen, close friends and siblings. The Williams sisters’ fourth-round encounter was notably light on challenges with Serena making the sole query (and winning) .
The appeals to Hawk-Eye offer a glimpse into the competitive mind and the way each point is desperately fought over. “The top four guys won’t play a match without calling upon Hawk-Eye,” confirms Aggas. The margins are that close.
