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Wimbledon opens with video review for the first time as Sinner begins his defence

The grass-court major adds umpire-call replays a year after replacing line judges; Sinner and Sabalenka headline day one

Sports· active The Quiet Shift·Who Decides ·6 takes ·

Summary

The 139th Wimbledon Championships opened on June 29, the first to use video review. On six show courts, including Centre Court and No. 1 Court, players can challenge chair-umpire calls such as double bounces, with no limit on the number of reviews, a system separate from the electronic line-calling that replaced human line judges in 2025. Wimbledon also added on-screen "out" and "fault" indicators for the line-calling. Defending champion Jannik Sinner opened Centre Court against Miomir Kecmanovic, with women's top seed Aryna Sabalenka following against Teodora Kostovic. The grass-court major runs through July 12.

The split

A tournament opening is not a contested story, so the divergence is in what each desk emphasised. Olympics.com and the WTA led with the day-one order of play and the marquee names. ESPN, the ATP and NBC centred the officiating change, video review on top of electronic line-calling, framing Wimbledon as finally modernising a tournament long resistant to it. The thread under the upbeat coverage: each layer of automation, line-calling in 2025, video review in 2026, quietly removes human judgment from the sport's most tradition-bound event, a shift the "best possible experience" messaging soft-pedals.

By the numbers

  • 139th, edition of the Championships, June 29 to July 12.
  • 6 courts, equipped with video review.
  • 0, limit on the number of player review requests.
  • 2025, the year Wimbledon replaced line judges with electronic line-calling.

Why it matters

Wimbledon sets the tone for officiating across tennis. Adding video review on top of automated line-calling pushes the sport further toward machine adjudication, with implications for how disputes are settled, how the chair umpire's authority is framed, and how much human judgment the most tradition-bound major retains.

What to watch

  • How often players use video review and whether it slows play.
  • Any controversy over a reviewed or non-reviewable call.
  • Sinner's and Sabalenka's progress as top seeds.
  • Whether other majors adopt the same system.