There was more controversy around the electronic line call system at Wimbledon during Tuesday’s quarter-final action as a point in Taylor Fritz’s match with Karen Khachanov had to be replayed because of a “malfunction” with the technology.
Wimbledon organisers apologised on Saturday after human error led to the system on Centre Court being turned off by mistake and missed three calls during Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s match with Britain’s Sonay Kartal.
This time, ‘fault’ was erroneously called during play in the first match of the fourth set, with Fritz leading 15-0 after taking the first two sets 6-3 6-4, but losing the third 1-6.
Swedish umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell called ‘stop’ and, after checking what the issue was over the phone, announced to the crowd inside Court One: “Ladies and gentleman we will replay the last point because of a malfunction. The system is now working.”
A statement from the All England Club said: “The player’s service motion began while the BBG was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn’t recognise the start of the point.
“As such the Chair Umpire instructed the point be replayed.”
BBG refers to Ball Boys and Girls, external and the incident happened shortly after one had collected a ball from the middle of the court after Fritz’s first served had landed out.
American Fritz went on to win the match 6-3 6-4 1-6 7-6 (7-4) to reach the semi-finals.
After the error in the Pavlyunchenkova-Kartal match, the All England Club said that they ‘continue to have full confidence in the accuracy of the ball-tracking technology’.
Changes were made to remove the possibility of “human error” when operating the system.
Wimbledon replaced line judges this year with the technology, which is being used at many other top-level tournaments, including the US Open and Australian Open.
But it has received criticism from some of the players at the tournament.
British number one Emma Raducanu called it “dodgy”, while Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic said complaints about the technology are a topic in the locker room.
Raducanu was particularly unhappy when a shot from Aryna Sabalenka was judged to have clipped the line midway through the first set of her defeat by the world number one on Friday.
“That call was for sure out,” Raducanu said after a closely-fought 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 loss where she went toe-to-toe with the top seed for much of the match.
Asked if she trusted the electronic line calls, Raducanu added: “No, I don’t – I think the other players would say the same thing, there were some pretty dodgy ones but what can you do?”
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