Hi Steve,
Let's continue the instant-replay theme, because there have been a lot of Hawkeye moments this week and I've been feeling guilty that I haven't had time to transmit them. Having declared my prejudices earlier, here are some observations:
The ultimate Hawkeye match so far has been the three-set thriller between Fernando Gonzalez and Ivan Ljubicic. The two went 4-7 on challenges won/lost, with Ljubicic at 3-3 and Gonzalez 1-4. No other match has had more than five total challenges, and it was 28-33 overall going into today.
Both Gonzalez and Ljubicic challenged overrules by the chair, which must be a bated-breath moment for umpires because they're only supposed to overrule to clear mistakes. It didn't happen here, but being over-overrruled by the replay would be pretty embarrassing.
A lot of challenges came late in the match, with the whole stadium riveted to the screen because every point now had the potential to change the outcome.
"What we both did in the tiebreak, you just go for it because we have three left and you have nothing to lose," said Ljubicic afterwards.
Lighthearted moments included Gonzalez raising his arms in triumph when he finally won a challenge early in the third set.
But the most memorable episode came when Gonzalez challenged an out call in the first game of the third set. The mark appeared to be touching the line but the verdict was 'out', leading both players to stare hard at the screen and then smile at each other.
"That was the first thing we were talking about after the match in the locker room," said Ljubicic. "He said, 'did you see that shot?' I said, 'yes.'
"I told him, I think if you zoom even more, then you would probably see it. I don't know. These computers, they just call it."
Ultimately, the question is: did replay add to the match or take away from it? Honestly, I'm not sure. It was a superb match with or without the replays. But the replays did provide some dramatics and fun at certain moments, though they seemed gratuitous at others.
A few other matches have had quirky situations. The Mathieu episode has already been discussed -- he stopped play to challenge and was told Hawkeye wasn't working. During the Jarrko Nieminen-Frank Dancevic match, umpire Norm Chryst avoided this by telling the players that Hawkeye was down. He didn't, however, tell them when it was back up. Dancevic only realized it was working again when he questioned a call and Chryst said it looked right to him, "but you can challenge if you want."
Chryst has obviously been umpiring matches with many wrong challenges. At one point he announced, "Mr. Dancevic has one challenge remaining" when Dancevic had in fact just won a challenge and had two remaining. The mistake was quikcly pointed out to him.
Andy Murray queried the chair in his match against Nieminen today, after Nieminen stopped play to challenge a call. "He didn't challenge for maybe 10, 12 seconds after he kind of caught the ball," said Murray. "I just wanted to know whether he was allowed to take that long. It wasn't really unsettling. I just wanted to clear up the rule because some umpires want you to do it straightaway as soon as it happens, and some give you a little bit more time."
I didn't see any situations where a match turned around because of a challenged call, nor one where a player was irate about a call but had used up all his challenges. There were some times when players didn't challenge calls they would have won, and some where they looked like they might have wanted to challenge but didn't because they had only one try left.
On the flip side, there were controversial calls on the ouside courts that Hawkeye wasn't available to solve, and you knew the crowd and spectators were feeling its absence. And not just them: After a bunch of overrules and close calls during the Murray-David Ferrer match, the microphone picked up umpire Lars Graff muttering "Jesus!" to himself.
Verdict: Cautiously positive -- it's created some fun and hasn't done much harm. (Not sure it's doing that much good in its present form, either, but that's a different ball of wax.) The only caveat is that there'll inevitably be a match where a player won't be able to use Hawkeye at a critical moment. If that's acceptable collateral damage, that's fine. What's annoying is passive acceptance of the system right up till a completely predictable problem occurs -- and then shrill outrage.
Suggestions: A little less verbiage. Don't have the umpire say "Mr. Ljubicic is challenging the out call on the far sideline" -- "Mr. Ljubicic is challenging" is enough. Everyone knows which call it is. Also, the "Mr. Ljubicic has two challenges remaining" may not be necessary once people get used to the rule.
Your thoughts?
Kamakshi