"The drama of the players shouting and challenging, and the drama of the audience watching the screen and waiting for Hawkeye to make a decision, all that drama is gone now."

David Bayliss has described a scene he saw many times during his time as a Wimbledon referee and which will never happen again at Wimbledon.

Like many other sports that embrace technology, the All England Club Wave goodbye to the Human Line Judge Starting next summer, 147 years later, in the name of "maximum accuracy."

But does that risk diminishing the drama in which Mr. Bayliss was an affectionate part—and one that so many of us enjoy watching?

“It’s a shame we won’t be line commentators anymore,” he said. "The game is on, but never say never."

He served as line judge and referee at Wimbledon for 22 years. He was on the penalty line when Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam title in 2003. He joked that being hit by a ball traveling over 100 miles per hour was "very painful."

While he's sad about the line umpire's departure, he said it's hard to argue with the logic.

"Essentially, we have people and technology making calls on the same line. Electronic line calls can override the human eye. So why do we need a line judge to make calls?"

Of course, even before Wimbledon announced Technology has played a big role in the game this week with HawkEye (a ball tracking system) and organizers are following the example set by others.

The ATP Tour was announced last year From 2025, manual linesmen will be replaced by electronic systems. The U.S. Open and Australian Open have also scrapped the system. The French Open will be the only Large events are judged by human online judges.

as BBC Tennis Correspondent Russell Fuller Overviewplayers would intermittently complain about electronic line calling, but for a while the consensus was that the technology was now more accurate and consistent than humans.

Mr Bayliss acknowledged "there is a high level of trust in electronic line calls".

"The only frustration a player can show is if they don't win points," he noted.

Whether the technology works is one thing, but whether it's worthwhile is another.

Dr Anna Fitzpatrick, who competed at Wimbledon between 2007 and 2013, said her "first feeling when hearing the news about the Wimbledon line judges was sadness".

"The human element of sport is one of the things that draws us to it," a lecturer in sports performance and analytics at Loughborough University told the BBC.

While she recognizes that technology can enhance an athlete's performance, she wants us to always control it.

Of course, tennis isn't the only sport embracing technology.

Cricket is another sport that plays a significant role, driven by broadcasters, according to Dr Tom Webb, an expert on sports officiating at Coventry University.

He said once television broadcasts show sporting moments in a way that referees cannot see, there will be calls for changes to the way the game is played.

"I think we need to be careful," he told the BBC.

In particular, he says, we need to think carefully about which aspects of human decision-making are automated.

He believes that in football, goal-line technology has been accepted because, like the electronic line call in tennis, it is a measurement - either a goal is scored or it is not.

However, many are frustrated with the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system because decisions take too long and fans in stadiums don't know what's going on.

"The problem with VAR is that it doesn't necessarily rely on technical accuracy. It still relies on personal judgment and subjectivity and how you interpret the rules of the game," he added.

Of course, it's easy to dismiss technology as something new in sports.

Professor Steve Harker of Sheffield Hallam University said that no matter what, sport has always evolved with today's innovations, and even the Greeks adopted sprinting in the ancient Olympics.

“This has been a spectacle since the beginning of sport, but we also want it to be fair.

"That's what these technologies are about. That's the skill we have to master."

Technology is still adding luster to sports – think of the 360-degree rotating photography used to showcase them dramatic conclusion Entered the men's 100m final at this year's Summer Olympics.

While it’s true that some traditional jobs, such as line review, may be disappearing, technology is also driving the creation of other jobs — especially in data.

Take sports analytics system Opta, for example, which allows athletes and fans to have data streams to measure performance, a process that artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating.

While it may not be the same as a tennis player's emotional outburst against a referee, its advocates argue that it allows for a closer bond as people learn more about the sport and players they love.

Of course, the frequent controversies surrounding systems such as VAR give the technology plenty of room to grow.

"People love sports because of the drama," said Patrick Lucey, chief scientist at Stats Perform, the company behind Opta.

“Technology can make it more powerful.”