Point replayed in Fritz match after line call ‘malfunction’

Confusion as electronic line judge system calls phantom fault

Venue:All England ClubDates:30 June-13 July

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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 afterhuman error led to the system on Centre Court being turned off by mistakeand 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 gentlemen 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,externaland the incident happened shortly after one had collected a ball from the middle of the court after Fritz's first serve had landed out.

The Americanwent 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 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.

Khachanov said he preferred human line judges, saying the court feels "too alone without them".

"I'm more for line umpires, to be honest," he said. "You feel a little bit the court is too big, too alone without line umpires.

"At the same time looks like AI and electronic line calls has to be very precise and no mistakes, but we've seen a couple. That's questionable why this is happening."

However, Fritz felt electronic line calls were a welcome addition.

"There's going to be some issues here and there," he added. "I still think it's much better to just have the electronic line calling, as opposed to the umpires, because I do like not having to think about challenging calls in the middle of points.

"The ball gets called, and we know, and that's it."

Some other players have previously been critical of the system.

British number one Emma Raducanu called it "dodgy", while Switzerland's Belinda Bencicsaid 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," said the Briton 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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