Wimbledon's line-calling technology fails again
And All England Club chiefs were left red-faced again on Tuesday as 'fault' was erroneously called midway through a Fritz and Khachanov rally in the first game of the fourth set. Swedish umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell shouted 'stop' and halted the play, before making a phone call to colleagues from her chair.
She then told the audience: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we will replay the last point due to a malfunction. The system is now working.' That prompted boos from the No 1 Court crowd, although neither player held the upper hand in the point and they replayed without protest.
Fritz lost the point and went on to have his serve broken, but he recovered in the set to win the tie-break and seal a 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 win. While it is not known what caused the malfunction on No 1 Court, it was another uncomfortable episode for the All England Club, who gave their full backing to the electronic line calling system on Monday.
A 'thorough review' of the Kartal incident identified that a Hawk-Eye operator had accidentally switched off the ball-tracking technology by unticking a box. An All England Club spokesperson said on Monday: 'Our live ELC system relies on the cameras and technology working in harmony with the operators and review officials.
'We have conducted a thorough review of our systems and processes. What is clear is that the ball-tracking technology has been working optimally during The Championships. 'In this instance, there was a human error which deactivated the ball tracking cameras on part of the server's side of the court.
Wimbledon claimed the error occurred because a ballboy was still running across the court when Fritz went to serve. The electronic line calling system does not work when more than two people are on the court for a singles match. A spokesperson said: 'The player's service motion began while the BBG was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn't recognize the start of the point. As such the Chair Umpire instructed the point be replayed.'
Khachanov said: 'I'm more for line umpires, to be honest. The electronic line calls have to be very precise and no mistakes, but we've seen a couple. 'That's questionable why this is happening. Is it just like the error of the machine or what's the reason?
'Today there were a few calls that were very questionable if it's really touching the line or not. At the same time during one point, the machine called it just out during the rally. Sometimes it's scary to let machine do what they want. 'What can I do? I can argue, or I can be angry on it or just continue playing. It's not in my power. It's already happened. 'I need to kind of accept it, and that's it. It was not kind of super important point. 'If it would happen on a break point or deuce or maybe tiebreaker, you can get more mad.'
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