Replacing line judges will kill the 'romance' of Wimbledon, says official who had infamous run-in with tennis legend John McEnroe

Replacing enactment judges with unrecorded physics calls volition termination the ‘romance’ of Wimbledon, says an authoritative who had an infamous run-in with John McEnroe.

Linesman Raghbir Singh Mhajan stood up to the American aft being accused of bias – and said yesterday that the American had behaved similar a ‘spoiled brat’.

The 1981 championships were celebrated for McEnroe’s much-parodied fury implicit a enactment telephone which went against him. He furiously screamed astatine umpire Edward James: ‘You cannot beryllium serious.’

While Hawkeye was introduced to SW19 successful 2007, allowing players to situation calls, enactment judges person remained until now.

But connected Wednesday it was announced that adjacent year’s championships volition spot them replaced with physics monitors. Mr Mhajan says the determination volition spoil the 147-year-old tournament.

Speaking from his location successful West London, surrounded by mementos from his career, the 89-year-old told The Mail connected Sunday: ‘What tin you do? If the players are blessed with this decision, 1 has to spell with what they want.

‘It is bittersweet for the enactment judges aft 140 years not to beryllium determination immoderate more. It was thing unique, I think.

‘Unfortunately it volition not beryllium the aforesaid without them, replacing them with computers oregon Hawk Eye oregon technology. It volition suffer immoderate of its romance due to the fact that the tribunal volition beryllium virtually empty. To me, Wimbledon is the apical tourney successful tennis – it’s wherever each subordinate wants to play.

‘And the enactment judges were portion of that, portion of the contented and the atmosphere, with their uniforms and discipline. But the astir important happening is the players. They request to beryllium happy.’

Mr Mhajan said helium drew McEnroe’s ire connected respective occasions, but his representation of his 1981 clash was inactive crystal clear. It came during a doubles lucifer successful the quarter-finals against Indian brothers Vijay and Anand Amritraj.

Mr Mhajan, who made history

as the archetypal Sikh enactment justice astatine Wimbledon successful 1973, said: ‘McEnroe said to me: “You are cheating, you are Indian.” He and Fleming were playing the Amritraj brothers, I was enactment justice and I was wearing my turban.

‘So I said to him calmly: “John, I americium not Indian, I americium Kenyan. I americium from Kenya.”

‘I had a batch of respect from each the different players due to the fact that they recovered maine fair. But McEnroe, unluckily helium was conscionable a spoiled brat.’