Wimbledon organisers left embarrassed after electronic line-calling system fails

Another controversy erupted at Wimbledon after the new electronic line-calling system failed during a fourth-round match on Centre Court on Sunday. The system was accidentally turned off and missed three calls during the game between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia and Britain’s Sonay Kartal.

Pavlyuchenkova was left upset after a backhand from Kartal clearly missed the baseline, and she was not given the point. The Russian stopped playing, thinking the point was hers. However, there was no ‘out’ call from the system, and the chair umpire Nico Helwerth had to stop the match.

“We’re just going to check if the system was up and running, because there was no audio call,” the umpire told the crowd. After making a phone call, he announced that the system had failed to track the ball and said the point would be replayed.

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Kartal won the replayed point and ended up breaking Pavlyuchenkova’s serve to take a 5-4 lead in the first set. Even though Pavlyuchenkova went on to win the match, she was still angry about the incident. “You took the game away from me… they stole the game from me,” she told the umpire during a break.

After the match, she said the chair umpire had admitted he also thought the ball was out but didn’t make the call. “That’s why he’s there. I thought he would do that, but he didn’t. Instead, they just said replay,” she said.

Pavlyuchenkova also suggested the umpire might have been hesitant because Kartal is a local player. “He probably was scared to take such a big decision,” she added.

Wimbledon organisers apologise

Wimbledon organisers later apologised for the error, but the incident has raised big questions about the technology’s reliability.

“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. In that time, there were three calls not picked up by live ELC on the affected part of the court. Two of these were called by the chair umpire, who was not made aware that the system had been deactivated,” a Wimbledon spokesperson said in a statement.

“Following the third, the chair umpire stopped the match and consulted with the review official. It was determined that the point should be replayed. The chair umpire followed the established process. We have apologised to the players involved,” the statement added.

This year is the first time Wimbledon is using fully automated line-calling. However, not everyone is happy with the new tech. British stars Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu have also complained about the system. After losing to Aryna Sabalenka, Raducanu said, “It’s kind of disappointing… the calls can be so wrong.”