Last summer, after 147 years of lawn tennis, Wimbledon finally decided to swap out their line judges for the electronic line calling (ELC) system, leaving Roland-Garros, which I will only be recognizing as the French Open, as the sole tournament among the majors (as well as all ATP/WTA events at the 500 level and up) to employ human referees.
This decision follows a long line of defiant acts associated with French tennis, going as far back as the Tennis Court Oath at the outset of the French Revolution. Much more recently, they ruffled feathers when they unilaterally moved the 2020 French Open—citing the pandemic—to late September, without consulting the other tournaments. This year, they haven’t increased prize money as much as other majors, angering players, with world #1 Aryna Sabalenka even threatening a future boycott of the French Open.
The tournament insists that the old-fashioned way of judging in-or-out calls by the naked eye is still the best and most accurate way to referee the red clay courts of Roland Garros. The most compelling reason for this is the fluid nature of the clay surface: although there are just two millimeters of red clay on the surface, the dust moves about the court throughout the match, groomed only between sets. The resulting irregularity can occasionally give ELC problems.