"I'd have less white hair": John McEnroe reacts to Wimbledon’s new tech rule

Former world number one John McEnroe has shared his point of view about the new rule set to be implemented at this year’s Wimbledon. The third Grand Slam of the year will begin on Monday in London, featuring the world’s best players.

This year’s competition is set to be a bit different compared to how the tournaments were played before. For the first time, technology will be used to make line calls at Wimbledon, instead of humans, to avoid controversial calls.

McEnroe has recently spoken to the English media outlet Daily Express, where he shared his perspective on the changes to the rules for this year’s edition of the mega-event. The 66-year-old also stated that if the same rules had been applied during his playing days, he would have had less white hair. However, McEnroe believes that players will miss the interaction with the line umpires with the introduction of the new rule.

“I had an obviously long history with linesmen, but if they have electronic equipment that works, that's preferable,” said McEnroe. “As fast as the balls are now being hit, to expect human beings to be able to get everyone right is a big ask, even for someone who complained a lot about it. Do I wish I'd had Electronic Line Calling at Wimbledon? Yes, I do. Actually. I'd have less white hair, and I might have a little more hair and I would have wasted less energy on that. Maybe I would have been more boring and I wouldn’t have been here, speaking to you now, and I wouldn’t have been commentating. So I got to look at the bright side But there's something in the interaction that you miss, I believe, and there's something about that that I think people will miss. But it's also nice to know if, in fact, it's accurate, and hopefully it's 100 per cent accurate, or 99.9 per cent. You hate to have that find out later that a call that was made on match point was not accurate, that would be truly infuriating.”