Does Technology Limit Tennis Tantrums?

July 2, 2008— -- "Nightline" tried to film U.S. tennis doubles specialist Bob Bryan as he warmed up for the Boodles Challenge event outside London. Sure, our cameras captured the raw power and coordination of his service action. But could we capture a closeup of the ball bouncing an inch inside the line?

Well, not really. That's because our camera records only 30 frames per second and Bryan serves at around 150 miles per hour. Watching the tape, all we saw was a puff of dust. So how can an umpire really make the call that a ball is in or out?

And we all know what can happen when a player feels wronged.

Remember John McEnroe's infamous outburst in 1981 while coasting in round two of Wimbledon against Tom Gullikson?

"You can't be serious man," spewed Mac, getting all irate in his tight shorts and headband. "You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line. Chalk flew up. It was clearly in!"

Well, maybe McEnroe had a point.

"John McEnroe was right probably 40 percent of the time," claims professor George Mather at the University of Sussex in England.

But that means, as the professor explains, "The umpires were right 60 percent of the time." And, apparently, those statistics apply not just to McEnroe but to his more even-tempered colleagues as well.

How did Mather work that out? Well, for starters, he has removed emotion from the equation. Mather isn't the sort of guy to go around calling people "the pits of the world." He quietly and studiously analyzed 1,500 player challenges made using the Hawkeye line-calling technology.