The community hero who is one of the voices calling the Australian Open

Image: (background) Matt King / Getty, (inset) Steven Gelagotis/Twitter

The Australian Open has ditched line-callers in favour of a robot this year.

The high-precision machine, dubbed Hawkeye, uses pre-recorded voices of eight everyday community heroes to voice the calls.

One of those community heroes is paramedic, Steven Gelagotis, who grew up watching the Australian Open and doing the line calls in different accents.

He told Neil Mitchell it was “mainly the Greek accent, imitating my grandma”.

Mr Gelagotis contracted COVID-19 while volunteering as a translator at St Basil’s Homes for the Aged.

“It was nice to be able to reassure these people that somebody is listening to them, and being able to talk their language,” he said.

“Seven months on I’m still having long-lasting effects from COVID.

“I’ve got this fatigue that’s constantly lasting.”

Press PLAY below for more.