Video Review Is Coming to Wimbledon — And It’s About Time
The All England Club has announced that video review technology will debut at Wimbledon 2026 — marking another major leap forward for a tournament that only ditched line judges a year ago.
After adopting electronic line-calling in 2025, Wimbledon is adding yet another layer of tech to its hallowed grass courts this summer. The All England Club confirmed during a media briefing — held 100 days before the tournament begins — that video review will be available on six courts for the first time in the championship’s storied history.
The technology, which allows players to challenge specific calls made by the chair umpire, will be deployed on Centre Court, No. 1 Court, No. 2 Court, No. 3 Court, Court 12, and Court 18. Players will have unlimited challenges and can use the system to contest whether a ball bounced or touched, whether they touched the net, or other disputed decisions — either on a point-ending call or immediately after a point concludes in cases of hindrance.
★ Courts Equipped with Video Review in 2026
- Centre Court
- No. 1 Court
- No. 2 Court
- No. 3 Court
- Court 12
- Court 18
From a sports technology standpoint, this is a natural evolution. Video review made its Grand Slam debut at the 2023 US Open, then arrived at the Australian Open in 2025. The ATP Tour has been rolling it out across all Masters 1000 events, building on experience gained at the NextGen ATP Finals (since 2018) and the year-end ATP Finals for the top eight players (since 2020). Wimbledon is now the third Grand Slam to adopt it — with Roland Garros the only major yet to follow suit.
It’s worth noting that video review operates separately from electronic line-calling (ELC). ELC handles ball-in or ball-out rulings in real time. Video review addresses the other kinds of judgment calls — net touches, bounces, hindrances — that ELC simply wasn’t designed to cover.
That said, Wimbledon’s 2025 rollout of electronic line-calling wasn’t without turbulence. The tournament acknowledged “operator error” after a ball hit well long by Brit Sonay Kartal went uncalled against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. A separate point also had to be replayed due to system failure during a quarterfinal clash between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov. Those incidents underscored that even the most sophisticated officiating tech depends on sound human oversight.
For Atlanta’s sports tech community, Wimbledon’s continued embrace of officiating technology is a compelling case study. The convergence of computer vision, real-time data processing, and broadcast-quality review systems is reshaping live sports — and tennis, with its binary calls and constant stoppages, has become one of the richest proving grounds for these innovations. Keep watching this space.