{"id":44420,"date":"2025-07-06T22:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T22:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44420\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T22:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T22:18:11","slug":"wimbledon-blames-human-error-for-missed-electronic-line-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44420\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon blames human error for missed electronic line call"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 A ball that clearly landed long in a match at Centre Court wasn\u2019t called out Sunday because the electronic system<\/a> that replaced line judges at Wimbledon<\/a> this year accidentally was shut off for three points.<\/p>\n

And, because the replay review procedure that used to be in place also has been scrapped, the chair umpire called for a do-over on the point at 4-all in the first set \u2014 much to the dismay of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the player who would have won the game if the proper call had been made originally.<\/p>\n

Pavlyuchenkova wound up getting broken there to trail Sonay Kartal of Britain, but she eventually did manage to come back to win the match 7-6 (3), 6-4 and reach the quarterfinals at the All England Club for the first time since 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou took the game away from me,\u201d 2021 French Open runner-up Pavlyuchenkova told chair umpire Nico Helwerth at the changeover after the game ended.<\/p>\n

Pavlyuchenkova, who is Russian, also said in the moment that the decision-making there went in Kartal\u2019s favor because she is a local player.<\/p>\n

Next for Pavlyuchenkova is a match against No. 13 Amanda Anisimova of the United States, a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 winner against No. 30 Linda Noskova on Sunday night. Anisimova also was a Wimbledon quarterfinalist in 2022; her best Slam showing was making the 2019 French Open semifinals at age 17.<\/p>\n

At her news conference, Pavlyuchenkova said Helwerth told her following the match that he did think Kartal\u2019s shot landed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he felt bad, a little bit,\u201d Pavlyuchenkova said. \u201cHe probably felt like he should have taken the initiative and called it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pavlyuchenkova also said Helwerth \u201cprobably was scared to take such a big decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pavlyuchenkova was serving and had a game point when Kartal hit a backhand that landed beyond the opposite baseline, TV replays showed. But there was no sound of one of the recorded voices being used for the first time at Wimbledon to reflect when the technology being used in place of human officials determines that a ball landed out.<\/p>\n

At least Pavlyuchenkova could joke about the whole episode later. Asked how she\u2019d feel about it had she lost the match, Pavlyuchenkova responded with a laugh: \u201cI would just say that I hate Wimbledon and never come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also cracked that chair umpires are \u201cvery good at giving fines and code violations\u201d and never miss those, but perhaps it would be beneficial if they did a better job of noticing mistaken calls.<\/p>\n

Kartal said she couldn\u2019t see where her shot went.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat situation is a rarity. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really ever happened \u2014 if it has. It\u2019s tough. What can you do? The umpire\u2019s trying his best in that situation, and he handled it fine,\u201d Kartal said. \u201cI think the system just malfunctioned a little bit, and the fairest way was what he did: replay the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helwerth delayed play while he made a phone call from his stand. Eventually, play resumed, Pavlyuchenkova missed a forehand on the replay, then lost the game a few points later.<\/p>\n

The tournament looked into it afterward and blamed \u201chuman error,\u201d saying that the line-calling setup \u201cwas deactivated in error on part of the server\u2019s side of the court for one game by those operating the system,\u201d according to an All England Club spokesperson, who added: \u201cWe continue to have full confidence in the accuracy of the ball-tracking technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson also said Pavlyuchenkova and Kartal received apologies from the club.<\/p>\n

The French Open is now the only Grand Slam tournament that still uses line judges instead of electronic calls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From 2007 through last year, players were allowed to challenge in-or-out calls at Wimbledon; a video review was employed to decide whether a line judge\u2019s \u2014 or chair umpire\u2019s \u2014 ruling was correct. That challenge system was removed for the current tournament, but there immediately were demands on social media from some tennis fans or observers to bring that back to aid chair umpires.<\/p>\n

Pavlyuchenkova agreed, saying: \u201cWe should probably look into something else to have better decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Fritz, who reached the quarterfinals with a win at a different court Sunday, didn\u2019t see what happened. But when it was explained by a reporter, his biggest question was why the chair umpire didn\u2019t just make the call himself if it was so clear what actually happened on Kartal\u2019s shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chair umpire has to make the call,\u201d 2024 U.S. Open finalist Fritz said. \u201cWhy is he there if he\u2019s not going to call the ball?\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 A ball that clearly landed long in a match at Centre Court wasn\u2019t called out…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[32349,12660,57,8650,34520,33960,62,7012,12335,1464,376,67,132,68,2071,14374,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-44420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-amanda-anisimova","9":"tag-anastasia-pavlyuchenkova","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-linda-noskova","12":"tag-nico-helwerth","13":"tag-sonay-kartal","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-sports-officiating","16":"tag-taylor-fritz","17":"tag-tennis","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-wimbledon","23":"tag-wimbledon-championships","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114808612821413610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}