This week’s Track Radio sport and Tech discussion

Wednesday 8th July 2026. Each Wednesday, at around 2.30pm, I talk to Sonya McLauchlan on Track Radio about technology and sport. This is the topic for this week.

You know that moment when you realise something’s missing but you can’t figure out what it is? Like the gap in a street where a building used to be and you just can’t remember what used to be there. I was watching Wimbledon on my laptop (absentmindedly I admit because I also had the football on the TV) and a forehand shot landed close to the baseline. A female voice shouted OUT but the player angrily disputed the call. I waited for an image of the guilty line-judge and the ooooooo-ahhh as a Hawkeye animation loomed onto the screen. But in the most anticlimactic way possible, the image of a ball mark next to the line flashed briefly onto the screen and the player shrugged whatever.

What’s going on? I thought.

Then I remembered: Wimbledon had done away with line-judges and gone for a fully automated Hawkeye system. That means a dozen or more cameras tracking the ball and making predictions of where the ball landed. The call I had heard was a recording of real person saying the decision of the computer. It was really quite convincing, especially when different genders were used for different lines. I thought this was to give a semblance of Wimbledon normality but it seems that it was so shouts didn’t interfere with neighbouring courts. Imagine the confusion if every OUT shout sounded the same .

Disappointment turns to delight

I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Not because the line judges had gone, but because the excitement of Hawkeye’s ‘big reveal’ had been lost. And the tension between the call from a human and that of a computer with its dozen high speed camera eyes was always part of the fun. A sort of Granny Weatherwax vs the Terminator.

When I looked at the Wimbledon site, I noticed a press-release about their new inclusive feed for the BBC with Hawkeye and an organisation called Action Audio. When I dug deeper, what I found was simply amazing.

The match is standard footage with additional cues for those with a visual impairment. The first thing you notice is a jingling sound coming from the ball as if it contains a small bell from a jester’s hat. As well as all the normal noises of a serve, the ball makes a satisfying jingle-da-jingle-da-jingle as it goes back and forth.

Although this might be new to the digital world, it only replicates what happens in real life. Blind tennis, also known as visually impaired tennis, VI tennis or sound tennis, is tennis tennis played by people who have poor, little or no sight. The ball jingles just like the BBC one and the ball can bounce once, twice or three times depending upon the severity of the players’ sight impairment. It’s worth watching Jack Draper giving it a go.

Going back to the BBC inclusive feed, the ball also drags a long yellow tail leaving behind it as it flies around the court. When the ball bounces, it leaves little white discs on the turf. If the ball hits the line and is in, the disc turns green: if it’s out, it turns red and the virtual judge shouts OUT. Ball speeds appear in a big black box next to each player giving instantaneous information not available on the standard screen.

Inclusive design is good for everyone

I remember listening to a presentation by someone with both physical and cognitive impairments. Her crucial point was that when it comes to the digital world, inclusive design done well is exactly that: inclusive. Get it right for people with impairments and you get it right for everyone. The BBC’s coverage with Hawkeye and Action Audio’s is proof of that.

Although this new technology wasn’t designed for me, I’ll be using it from now on: as well as being good for blind people, or those with impaired vision, it’s also great for sports fans with eyesight that’s just a bit rubbish and who never seem to be able to follow the ball.

Finally, I’d love to hear from anyone with actual visual impairments to see if it enhances their enjoyment of tennis, and maybe perhaps even give the real version a go.

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