The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Video technology inevitable: McNamee

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 31, 2005

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Video technology inevitable: McNamee

MELBOURNE, JAN. 30. Australian Open chief executive Paul McNamee said on Sunday that video technology to assist chair umpires was ``inevitable'' and was likely to be introduced here in 2006 with funds already allocated in next year's tournament budget.

McNamee says the video should be on point-ending challenges only.

``It's only on the last point of the rally otherwise you would end up with no linesmen at all,'' said McNamee. ``You would have machines calling the lines and that is not where the sport wants to go — you don't want to remove the human element completely.''

Earlier in the tournament, women's champion Serena Williams said players should only be able to challenge two or three calls a match.

She's in favour of helping line judges and chair umpires, perhaps because of her much-discussed loss to Jennifer Capriati at last year's U.S. Open. Williams was hurt by several officiating errors. The United States Tennis Association is investigating the technology and is hoping to introduce line calling aids for umpires at the next U.S. Open.

``We're very encouraged by the initial testing,'' U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier said earlier. ``There's a lot of steps to go, but our goal is to have some type of electric line calling aids for umpires at the 2005 U.S. Open.''

Serena celebrates

Serena Williams held true to her promise, celebrating her Australian Open final win over Lindsay Davenport by shopping at some Melbourne boutiques.

Hours after her win, Williams jumped on a water taxi with her trophy and motored down the Yarra River, which runs alongside Melbourne Park.

Williams took the more sensible option — American Jim Courier jumped into the murky Yarra fully clothed after his singles wins in 1992 and 1993.

Statistics, statistics

It took nearly two weeks, but tournament organisers finally provided the usual statistics on how many hotdogs eaten, how many people through the doors, how many kilometres on the courtesy cars. So here goes:

— the 14-day tournament broke the 500,000 attendance mark for the sixth year in a row, up more than 20,000 on last year. It also saw the highest one-day attendance in history when 60,069 spectators came to Melbourne Park on Saturday, Jan. 22. Celebrity visitors included golfer Greg Norman, boxer Kostya Tszyu, former LA Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson, singer Olivia Newton-John and actor Geoffrey Rush.

— hungry patrons ate 31,700 buckets of French fries, 13,700 hot dogs, 11,714 meat pies and drank 111,000 espresso coffees. The tournament's 88 courtesy cars drove 340,000 kilometres (210,000 miles).

First time in 21 years

Australia will have a man and woman in the world's top 10 for the first time in 21 years — Lleyton Hewitt and Alicia Molik — when the next rankings are released.

Hewitt will rise from No. 3 to second in the rankings Monday after becoming the first Australian since John Newcombe in 1970 to progress to at least the quarterfinals of four consecutive Grand Slam tournaments.

Roger Federer, who lost to Marat Safin here in the semifinals, remains No. 1 while Andy Roddick drops one place to No. 3 and Safin is fourth.

Molik will climb from No. 12 to 10th after becoming the first Australian woman since Anne Minter in 1988 to advance to the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park. Molik beat Venus Williams in the fourth round.

Losing finalist Lindsay Davenport remains at No. 1 while Australian Open champion Serena Williams moves up to second from seventh. — AP

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