Former world No. 1 tennis player Andy Roddick believes that the Hawk-Eye system has limited the amount of interaction that naturally exists between the players and umpires these days.
This proclamation comes from an individual who had a history of arguing and going head’s on against umpires. Many would refer to his infamous outburst during the 2008 Australian Open, where he told the crowd: “Stay in school, kids, or you’ll end up being a chair umpire.”
Now that he’s retired, Roddick certainly feels that the tension and heat, which more often than not provides excitement, is no longer visible within the tennis circuit, and he attributes that to the hawk-eye system.
“This is completely different to what I thought as a player, but I would get rid of the challenge system,” Roddick told CNN
“I feel like we’ve lost a lot of our personality. If someone is really having a go at the umpire, you are not going to change the channel. It’s an impossibility.
“It’s about eyeballs on TV sets,” he said. “We love our guys in the game now, Roger, Rafa and the way they carry themselves but there’s some entertainment value on the guys that don’t carry themselves so well,”
While most players within the sport have inherently showed their support for the system, Roddick’s sentiments was echoed by Roger Federer two years ago. He famously requested for the Hawk-Eye to be turned off during his Wimbledon final clash with Rafael Nadal, and claimed that while he understood the point of the system, he didn’t quite enjoy it to begin with.
“What I like without Hawk-Eye is just the players challenging the umpires more often.”
Besides tennis, the Hawk-Eye system is also used in other sports like cricket, and more recently football, where it’s used to determine as to whether a goal was scored or not.
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