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• Wimbledon’s AI-powered line calls have replaced human judges
• Players like Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu have voiced frustration over questionable calls
• Despite its precision, Wimbledon’s AI system has experienced malfunctions that raised backlash among fans as well

Wimbledon made headlines this year by eliminating human line judges entirely, replacing them with an AI-powered system designed to make automated calls with pinpoint accuracy. But while the technology may be getting most of the calls right, it’s also causing frustration among players and fans alike. Complaints have poured in about missed or delayed calls, inaudible announcements, and a lack of transparency when things go wrong.

Hawk-Eye Live, a system made up of a nest of high-speed cameras and AI processing, is now officiating all of Wimbledon’s line calls and is supposed to be incredibly precise, more than having humans line the court.

But the calls were not always as precise or even as audible as they should be. You might not notice it on TV, where commentators fill the silence, but apparently, the players struggled to hear the actual calls. Yue Yuan literally asked the umpire during her match if someone could turn up the AI’s volume.

Just ask Jack Draper, who, after a tough loss to Marin Cilic, said he distrusted the accuracy of the AI in multiple instances. Emma Raducanu brought up a similar issue after losing a close match to Aryna Sabalenka. She made it clear that she thought one of the line calls was outright wrong, going out when the AI said it wasn’t

Not to mention, when Sonay Kartal was on the verge of victory against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the AI system just shut down. The All England Club later apologized, saying, “It is now clear that the live ELC system, which was working optimally, was deactivated in error on part of the server’s side of the court for one game by those operating the system.”

AI volley

Not every tournament uses AI. The French Open still retains human judges. It’s an issue of power, as well as accuracy. If an umpire makes a bad call, a player can challenge it. But Wimbledon’s new system is the judge. You can’t argue with a robot voice or claim it was looking away at the wrong moment. The All England Club pitches the system as fairer than human line judges. Whether that’s true or not, the displaced line judges are understandably upset. Over 300 of them were cut this year, and some showed up outside the grounds holding protest signs.

The AI line judges didn’t come out of nowhere. Wimbledon has been inching toward AI judgment for years, and other tournaments have already ditched line judges. But maybe it’s not just about the machines. Wimbledon is a weird tournament, full of ritual. When you take away the line judges and their practiced arm movements, it takes away a major element of the tournament. And without the human flourishes that make the tournament fun, Wimbledon is just mindless swatting of a ball between two rackets.

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It’s time for your guide to today’s Wordle answer, featuring my commentary on the latest puzzle, plus a selection of hints designed to help you keep your streak going.

Don’t think you need any clues for Wordle today? No problem, just skip to my daily column. But remember: failure in this game is only ever six guesses away.

Want more word-based fun? TechRadar’s Quordle today page contains hints and answers for that game, and you can also take a look at our NYT Strands today and NYT Connections today pages for our verdict on two of the New York Times’ other brainteasers.

SPOILER WARNING: Today’s Wordle answer and hints are below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.

Wordle hints (game #1480) – clue #1 – Vowels

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Wordle hints (game #1480) – clue #2 – first letter

D is the ninth most common starting letter in the game, so maybe slightly less likely than you might expect.

Wordle hints (game #1480) – clue #3 – repeated letters

Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it’s still more likely that a Wordle doesn’t have one.

Wordle hints (game #1480) – clue #4 – ending letter

D is a fairly common letter to end a Wordle answer: it’s the eighth most likely to be in that position in a solution.

Wordle hints (game #1480) – clue #5 – last chance

Still looking for more Wordle hints today? Here’s an extra one for game #1480.

• Today’s Wordle answer is a feeling of impending unease.

If you just want to know today’s Wordle answer now, simply scroll down – but I’d always recommend trying to solve it on your own first. We’ve got lots of Wordle tips and tricks to help you, including a guide to the best Wordle start words.

If you don’t want to know today’s answer then DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER BECAUSE IT IS PRINTED BELOW. So don’t say you weren’t warned!

Today’s Wordle answer (game #1480)

• NYT average score: 4.1
• My score: 4
• WordleBot’s score: 3
• My skill score: 95
• My luck score: 45
• My start word performance: CACTI (356 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (11)
• Tomorrow’s start word: CRONY

Today’s Wordle answer (game #1480) is… DREAD.

DREAD is not an emotion I experience very often, fortunately, but I do dread one day failing Wordle and losing my streak.

I’m at 1,282 now, so if I did lose it I would be very unlikely to ever beat it again; there are about 850 of the original answers left, plus maybe 50-100 more added by the NYT (maybe fewer than that), so reaching 1,000 again would be an impossibility. Would there be any point in carrying on? How would I find the enthusiasm to get up each day, let alone to solve Wordle and write a daily column on it? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But back in the real world, I don’t dread very much, which I am very grateful for. And nor do I dread a repeated letter in Wordle, because this is the third game in a row to include one – and none of them have been horribly difficult to solve.

D is not a particularly common one to be repeated – there are only 22 games that have more than one D among the 2,309 original solutions. But it is, however, a relatively common inclusion at both the start and end (ninth and eighth respectively), which may have helped you place it today.

It appears that plenty of people are struggling to solve it, because it has a high-ish average of 4.1. And that’s despite WordleBot’s favored CRANE leaving only 11 options. My CACTI was a lot less helpful, and I had 356 words to choose from.

One of those was SNARE, which I played next and which succeeded in uncovering two more yellows to add to the still-yellow A.

I knew an ER word was unlikely now, because the A couldn’t go in the second position; ADDER and AMBER were the only ones I could think of, though the ‘Bot later pointed out AUGER and ALDER too.

Instead, I focused mainly on -REA- words such as DREAM, BREAK, FREAK, WREAK, BREAD and indeed DREAD.

DREAM might have left me a big pool of seven words if the letters had fallen differently, but as it was I got lucky and it left only one possible answer. That was DREAD, which I played with anything but that and scored a decent four.

Yesterday’s Wordle hints (game #1479)

In a different time zone where it’s still Monday? Don’t worry – I can give you some clues for Wordle #1479, too.

• Wordle yesterday had a vowel in one place.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

• The first letter in yesterday’s Wordle answer was S.

S is the most common starting letter in the game, featuring in 365 of Wordle’s 2,309 answers. In fact, it’s almost twice as likely to begin an answer as the next most common starting letter, C.

• There were repeated letters in yesterday’s Wordle.

Repeated letters are quite common in the game, with 748 of the 2,309 Wordle answers containing one. However, it’s still more likely that a Wordle doesn’t have one.

• The last letter in yesterday’s Wordle was T.

T is a very common letter to end a Wordle answer – in fact only E and Y are more likely in that position.

Still looking for more Wordle hints? Here’s an extra one for game #1479.

• Yesterday’s Wordle answer is a pole that elevates.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1479)

• NYT average score: 4.0
• My score: 4
• WordleBot’s score: 4
• My skill score: 80
• My luck score: 56
• My start word performance: NOSEY (175 remaining answers)
• WordleBot’s start word performance: CRANE (356)
• Tomorrow’s start word: CACTI

Yesterday’s Wordle answer (game #1479) was… STILT.

Whether by accident or design, the NYT is throwing plenty of tricky words at us right now. Sunday’s ATRIA followed Saturday’s BALER, and though Friday’s CURVE was not so bad, Thursday’s POPPY was a nightmare.

STILT is another potentially tricky one, though it will depend on what your start word was. If you began with STARE, you’ll have been happy enough; although not quite as successful as it was for ATRIA (where it left only a single answer), it reduced the pool to 22. But the real winner among the oft-played words today was SLATE, which left only five.

The repeated Ts are the major complicating factor here. As my analysis of every Wordle answer shows, getting more than one T in a solution is not uncommon compared to most letters – it occurs 61 times overall, meaning that only E, O, L and A are more likely to appear more than once. However, put that in the context of 2,309 answers and there’s a less than 3% chance of this format turning up.

Still, all five (or four) letters are common, and the ST at the start is by far the most common opening combination, with 65 appearances. Wordle giveth and it taketh away, then – which adds up to an average score of 4.0, so it’s not too difficult.

I hit that average with my own game, as did WordleBot, but I didn’t play it particularly well. NOSEY was an unhelpful starter, but SAINT got things back on track, giving me three greens in the format S-I-T.

I now had six words available, but only found four: SHIFT, STILT, SKIRT and SWIFT. Somehow, I missed SHIRT – which was ridiculous, given that I got SKIRT – plus SPILT, which was maybe easier to overlook given that I would write ‘spilled’ instead.

Anyway, that impacted my third choice, because I thought WHELK would guarantee me the answer – whereas in reality it might have left me either of two 50/50s.

And indeed, it did leave one – between STILT and SPLIT. But I still hadn’t thought of the latter, so played the former and got away with it. Phew!

Wordle answers: The past 50

I’ve been playing Wordle every day for more than three years now and have tracked all of the previous answers so I can help you improve your game. Here are the last 50 solutions starting with yesterday’s answer, or check out my past Wordle answers page for the full list.

• Wordle #1479, Monday 7 July: STILT
• Wordle #1478, Sunday 6 July: ATRIA
• Wordle #1477, Saturday 5 July: BALER
• Wordle #1476, Friday 4 July: CURVE
• Wordle #1475, Thursday 3 July: POPPY
• Wordle #1474, Wednesday 2 July: INCUR
• Wordle #1473, Tuesday 1 July: MOLDY
• Wordle #1472, Monday 30 June: BLINK
• Wordle #1471, Sunday 29 June: WITTY
• Wordle #1470, Saturday 28 June: STUMP
• Wordle #1469, Friday 27 June: PLAIN
• Wordle #1468, Thursday 26 June: OFFER
• Wordle #1467, Wednesday 25 June: COMFY
• Wordle #1466, Tuesday 24 June: ELITE
• Wordle #1465, Monday 23 June: ODDLY
• Wordle #1464, Sunday 22 June: THRUM
• Wordle #1463, Saturday 21 June: GLADE
• Wordle #1462, Friday 20 June: TAUPE
• Wordle #1461, Thursday 19 June: CURIO
• Wordle #1460, Wednesday 18 June: MUNCH
• Wordle #1459, Tuesday 17 June: PRANK
• Wordle #1458, Monday 16 June: PETTY
• Wordle #1457, Sunday 15 June: QUAIL
• Wordle #1456, Saturday 14 June: GHOST
• Wordle #1455, Friday 13 June: BILGE
• Wordle #1454, Thursday 12 June: VIXEN
• Wordle #1453, Wednesday 11 June: PLAID
• Wordle #1452, Tuesday 10 June: TAFFY
• Wordle #1451, Monday 9 June: BOARD
• Wordle #1450, Sunday 8 June: LEASE
• Wordle #1449, Saturday 7 June: REUSE
• Wordle #1448, Friday 6 June: EDIFY
• Wordle #1447, Thursday 5 June: DATUM
• Wordle #1446, Wednesday 4 June: CEASE
• Wordle #1445, Tuesday 3 June: ADMIN
• Wordle #1444, Monday 2 June: PREEN
• Wordle #1443, Sunday 1 June: ROUGH
• Wordle #1442, Saturday 31 May: HABIT
• Wordle #1441, Friday 30 May: IDIOM
• Wordle #1440, Thursday 29 May: QUASH
• Wordle #1439, Wednesday 28 May: POLAR
• Wordle #1438, Tuesday 27 May: SPORT
• Wordle #1437, Monday 26 May: DRONE
• Wordle #1436, Sunday 25 May: GRIFT
• Wordle #1435, Saturday 24 May: SUEDE
• Wordle #1434, Friday 23 May: SHUCK
• Wordle #1433, Thursday 22 May: FOLIO
• Wordle #1432, Wednesday 21 May: ALARM
• Wordle #1431, Tuesday 20 May: BORNE
• Wordle #1430, Monday 19 May: PITCH
• Wordle #1429, Sunday 18 May: LIVID

What is Wordle?

If you’re on this page then you almost certainly know what Wordle is already, and indeed have probably been playing it for a while. And even if you’ve not been playing it, you must surely have heard of it by now, because it’s the viral word game phenomenon that took the world by storm in 2022 and is still going strong in 2025.

We’ve got a full guide to the game in our What is Wordle page, but if you just want a refresher then here are the basics.