Watching the first rounds of the Australian Open over the past week I found I never really noticed how effective the Hawkeye Replay and Challenge System in tennis have been. Now obviously tennis has an advantage over sports like baseball or football because the replay is only used to determine whether a ball is in or out and can be done electronically but it really works. A player is allotted a certain number of challenges per set and can call for them whenever they see fit. The replay only takes a few seconds and nothing is left up to the ruling of the line judge because it is done with digital sensors so rarely is anyone unhappy with the call. The big negative I see with Instant Replay in other sports is that they interrupt the game and kill the flow. I hope the NFL and MLB will work to digitize their replay systems to remove some of the element of human error as much as possible. Just think how much more effective a booth review in the NFL would be if the sidelines and endzone were lined with sensors. Challenges for whether a player was in-bounds or not would take less than 30 seconds and the game could get right back on its feet. I know this is asking a lot but I really think it's something the competition committees of the major sports leagues should look into for the future.
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