Why Do Professional Pickleball Players Make Their Own Line Calls?

Imagine you are a professional pickleball player going for gold on match point, you hit a deep topspin serve that lands right on top of the line clear as day. Your opponent scream "OUT!" You are enraged and call for a review.

(assuming you even have one left this late in the game).

The referees review the slow motion replay over and over

(keep in mind the these are not line cameras, it is simply the live broadcasted replay with a bad frame rate)

Even with the poor visibility camera angle you can see the ball in...However, once the main referee walks onto center court they say "after review, call stands, the ball was out".

There is nothing you can do except toss the ball to your opponent and continue on. This happens all too often at the professional level, at least once per match there is an incorrect call that should have gone the other way. I could understand this at the amateur level, but the pro's shouldn't need to deal with this. Essentially, your OPPONENT is determining your fate, bias much?

WHY CAN'T CORRECT CALLS BE MADE?

1) The Venue - Pro tournaments typically use facilities that aren't designated for pickleball, such as tennis centers or sports complexes. Because of this, the audio equipment, video cameras, and even the stands needs to be transported from event to event which makes it hard to have any permanent line call systems in place. 

2) Low Framerate - FPS (Frames Per Second) is pivotal when determining when a ball makes contact with the ground. Many times when the refs are watching a slow motion replay, the frame where the ball touches the ground is missing, so its impossible to know for 100% certainty where the ball landed.

3) Overwhelming Proof - Due to the previous point made, the referees give the benefit of the doubt to the original call. If you call a ball out, and the replay doesn't give you 100% clarity that it was in, most of the time the ref will let the original call stand. 

4) Bad Viewpoint - Unlike tennis where there are multiple linemen watching every angle, pickleball has 1-2 refs who stand at the sides of the net and typically do not have a great view of the ball. Most of their focus is paying attention to foot faults.

5) Lack of funds - Systems like Hawkeye cost upwards of $100,000 to install, safe to say this isn't happening anytime soon. Also, hiring 4-6 additional linesman is most likely not in the budget, not to mention it would crowd the court area which is already much smaller than tennis.

NEGATIVE IMPACTS

1) Deflated Feeling - As a pro player, it's hard to stay in the zone when you have to sit and wait for replays. When you feel like you got cheated out of a call, it's hard to let that go during the next points. Even if you are mentally strong, there's always that place in the back of your brain that thinks "what could have been."

2) Sports Betting - Gambling on pickleball is slowing becoming more popular, I would hate to put money on a certain player or team, and have them lose due to an incorrect call made by the opponent.

3) Legitimacy of the sport - It is hard to take a sport seriously from a spectators view when you have blatant scoring issues. Every other sport has their affairs in order when it comes to determining "close calls". The better player should win and it cannot continue to be decided by the people on the other side of the net.

4) Unfair Calls - I have personally witnessed players call balls that are obviously in, out... This is because they know there is no downside to doing this. If your call gets overturned, so what. If it stands, then you just won a point you shouldn't have. Opponents have every reason to cheat the system for their benefit.

WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW?

The quickest and most viable option for pickleball would to utilize cameras with a higher frame rate and zoom ability, this would solve 90% of the line calls issues because the most important factor is capturing the frame where the ball makes contact with the ground. These cameras are more expensive, but they can at least be used for championship courts and moved around for the entire tour. It's an expense worth its weight in gold.

If that can't be done, we need at least 4 additional cameras covering each side line of the court with a straight on view so we do not need to rely on the main camera zooming in to the other side with a bad angle.