I have been a Wimbledon line judge for 40 years. They could have said machines will do the job next year -Wendy Smith

I saw Andy Murray win, and intervened when Andre Agassi swore. A computer may be consistent, but tennis needs the human touch.

They say everyone remembers their first Wimbledon, but mine was so far back that it’s a bit of a blur. It was 1982, the year that Jimmy Connors beat John McEnroe, and I had tickets to Centre Court. But what made it special for me was the opening week: it was my first Wimbledon as a line judge, and since then I’ve officiated there in all but two of the tournaments. So when I heard on Wednesday that the tournament is replacing us line judges with electronic line calling, I was gutted. It hurt even more because I only found out when it was announced in the news and my phone started pinging with people asking me how I felt.

I used to play a lot of tennis when I was younger, and when you play junior tournaments you end up umpiring each other’s games. It was at a tournament at Wembley, sponsored by Benson & Hedges, where I saw an advert from the Professional Tennis Umpires Federation (PTUF) calling for new members, and I thought I’d give it a go. I had about 30 minutes’ training at the Queen’s Club in west London and I was in. The PTUF was run by ex-military types then and they were very particular about how you stood, sat and walked on to court. They wouldn’t put up with any slouching.
Until recently we were only paid expenses for travelling to and officiating at games, so line judges did our jobs purely for the love of tennis. You’d work your way up through the different local events and get graded by the chair umpire until eventually you were considered good enough for Wimbledon – the dream. A few colleagues have told me this week that they’re not going to bother renewing their licences now that they can’t aim towards officiating at Wimbledon any more, so I worry that smaller tournaments will struggle to find line judges soon.