That's just the other side of the coin: If, as on Tuesday evening in the Wiener Stadthalle, the noise level is damn close to a fleet of planes taking off, then you simply don't hear the call from the automatic Hawk-Eye linesman. There are still tournaments where real people decide whether a ball was good or whether it was out of bounds. These tournaments are becoming fewer, but have the charm that the line staff then also makes their judgment with a show of hands.

Something like that would have been an advantage for many fans in the hall on Tuesday in Dominic Thiem's match against Tommy Paul. On the one hand, the acoustic signals were lost in the jubilation over (alleged) points from Thiem. Or else they stayed away. But viewers couldn't be sure. After all, riots were announced in many situations. And then there were the players whose body language gave an indication of the status of the last ball played.

John McEnroe's Utopia

Basically, however, tennis has already achieved the status that John McEnroe called utopia many years ago: that referees are no longer needed. However, McEnroe, whose favorite enemies were always in the high chairs or on the lines, never thought that there could be a system that scored balls in real time.

So why still umpires? Counter question: What would have happened if Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios had not met under adult supervision during their heated game? The possibility that fists would have flown on Court 1 - anyone who was there knows: this possibility was there.

But Wimbledon in particular has shown that the human eye should be relieved on the lines. When a convincing technique is at the start (as is now the case on hard courts and grass). On the other hand: The fans in the Stadthalle didn't let themselves be irritated by Hawk-Eyes' surefire decision. And tight balls always interpreted in favor of Dominic Thiem.

Here the individual tableau in Vienna

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