Wimbledon apologises after fourth-round match marred by technology failure
Former French Open champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was robbed of a point during her last-16 victory over Britain's Sonay Kartal on Sunday because of the glitch, leading the Russian veteran to complain bitterly.
Serving at game point and 4-4 in the opening set, Kartal hit a shot that was clearly long, prompting Pavlyuchenkova to stop playing the point.
An automated voice call of 'stop, stop' then blared out, causing more confusion as chair umpire Nico Helwerth had to telephone for help from tournament organisers.
Helwerth ruled that because the Hawk-Eye technology had not tracked the ball, the point had to be replayed, even though TV replays showed the ball to be way out.
It proved a crucial ruling with Pavlyuchenkova then going on to have her serve broken.
Raging at the changeover, she told Helwerth: 'Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me. They stole the game from me. You stole the game from me'.
Ultimately, Pavlyuchenkova got back on track to win 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 to book a quarter-final place, but she was later still voicing her unhappiness about the call system, which has only be introduced this year after the decision to get rid of all line judges at the tournament.
Tournament officials reported the non-call had been down to operator error, but Pavlyuchenkova felt Helwerth should have intervened to correct what everyone saw was a clear error.
'I just thought the chair umpire could take the initiative. That's why he's there sitting on the chair. He also saw it out, he told me after the match. I thought he would do that, but he didn't,' she said.
'I think it's also difficult for him. He probably was scared to take such a big decision. But I think they should. That's what they're there for, sitting on the chair.
'Otherwise, I think, soon, let's just play without them. Right? Then we're gonna have everything automatic.
'I think we're losing a little bit of this charm of actually having human being ball boys. Like, during Covid, we didn't have ball boys. It becomes a bit weird and robot sort of oriented.
'They're very good at giving fines though and code violations. This, they don't miss. Every time, any little thing, they're just right there on it. I'd prefer they looked at the lines and calling the errors, mistakes better.'
Asked how she would have felt if the point had cost her the match, Pavlyuchenkova smiled: 'I would just say that I hate Wimbledon and never come back here!'
Other players at the Championships have complained about wrong calls, with British star Emma Raducanu saying she didn't trust the system and Jack Draper adamant it was not 100 per cent accurate.
Pavlyuchenkova added: 'I think we are losing a little bit of the charm of actually having human beings. Like during COVID, we didn't have ball boys. It just becomes a little bit weird and sort of robot-orientated.'
And with another dig at organisers, she added: 'They're very good at giving fines, though, and code violations. I would prefer they looked at the lines and call the errors better.'
The All England Club admitted error after the match, issuing an apology to the players.
'We have apologised to the players involved,' a statement reads.
'We continue to have full confidence in the accuracy of the ball tracking technology.
'In this instance, there was a human error and as a consequence we have fully reviewed our processes and made the appropriate changes.'
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