If you think your job is stressful you should try being a professional tennis umpire. This riveting long read in The Guardian from William Ralston first gives you a brief history of how paid full time professional umpires were created in the mid-80s to referee tennis matches (after things had crazy over the previous decade with professional tennis players routinely abusing and threatening umpires). Mr Ralston then explains why modern tech – which was supposed to make umpiring easy – has in reality made it more difficult.

Firstly, because the players can’t blame the tech anymore, they take out their frustration on the umpire: “Remove the disagreements over line calls, the thinking went, and conflict would disappear. But it hasn’t worked out like that. When I spoke to Bernardes, who began officiating in 1989 and has umpired five grand slam finals, he told me that he, too, had expected that technology would eradicate confrontations with the players. It’s actually been “the opposite”, he said. “It seems like the guys are more frustrated with themselves because they now cannot blame the line umpire who made that call.””

Secondly, the technology used in tennis is not yet 100% perfect that obviously enrages the players: “Since 1980, when Cyclops was introduced, technology has been a crucial part of the professional game. An electronic line-calling system that projected infrared beams across the court, Cyclops would beep when a serve was out. But the system wasn’t always reliable, and human error remained a problem. In 2004, in an instantly notorious US Open quarter-final between Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati, four incorrect calls were made against Williams. The match sparked intense debate about the need for technology that could objectively scrutinise all the lines. In 2006 Hawk-Eye was introduced, and it has been in use ever since, except on clay courts, where old-school ball mark inspections still apply.”

Thirdly, unlike football or cricket, tennis matches have can go for an indefinite period of time and as per the ATP’s rules, the umpire cannot be changed once the match has started: “The challenge of umpiring is mental, not physical. A football referee might have to cover eight miles during a match, but they only have to stay alert for 90 minutes. The tennis chair umpire might be required to focus for more than four hours. While the line judges and ball kids work in one-hour shifts, the chair umpire remains.

Several umpires told me that they suffered from headaches early in their career. It can take young umpires years to learn how to “manage their focus,” says Richard Haigh, a British umpire who was awarded a gold badge last year. Lose concentration and the result can be humiliating.”

Fourthly, a tennis umpire has to control the whole match, including the crowd. Again, this aspect of umpiring in unique to tennis: “As line-calling technology becomes more central, chair umpires are becoming more like conductors, Čičak told me. Their task is to manage the match, ensuring that the drama unfolds but without losing control. If the umpire is the conductor, the orchestra are the players, the ball kids, the line judges and the crowd. Čičak noted the way the umpire called the score: once in the local language and again in English. The first one starts the clock between points, and the second one can be used to calm the crowd. “The more you try to control them [the crowd] the less they will listen to you,” Čičak told me. “So we can use the score.”

On a close line call, Čičak also observed when the umpire called the score: by calling it early, umpires can shut down the doubt in the player’s minds and support their line judges.

Even the best umpires will sometimes hesitate as they “sell” a line call. One of the few negatives Čičak noted in her evaluation was that, during a routine ball mark inspection, the umpire returned to her chair too quickly, which doesn’t send a “strong, confident” message to the players.

Čičak awarded the umpire a score of five out of seven. To have scored higher, she’d have needed to have responded to a difficult situation, but nothing came up. Rising umpires who are being evaluated actively want something to go wrong in their matches, so they can prove their skills under pressure.

Some umpires, even great ones, can seem robotic or humourless in the chair. Lahyani is more of a showman. On big points, he’ll add ominous emphasis to the score: “fifteen-FORTY”. He has umpired every men’s world No 1 since the 90s, and describes his officiating skills as a gift from God (“because I do it naturally”).”

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