LONDON – A malfunction with Wimbledon’s new electronic line calling system has called for it to play in the quarterfinals of Taylor Fritz and Karen Kachanoff on Tuesday.
This issue occurred during the opening game of the fourth set in Court No. 1 after Fritz served 15-0 and players exchanged shots. After that, a call for “disability” came.
Chairman Judge Louise Azemer Enzel stopped playing and, after a while, ordered the player to “play the last point for a malfunction.”
The system tracked Fritz’s shots in the rally, as if it were a serve, the All England Club said.
“The system didn’t recognize the beginning of the point as the player’s service movement began while (ball boy/ball girl) was still over the net.
Khachanov scored regeneration points, but fifth seed Fritz advanced to the semi-finals with a 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4) victory.
Wimbledon switched to an electronic system that replaces human judges this year, but that wasn’t smooth.
On Sunday, there was an obvious mistake on centre court during Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s three-set victory over Sonay Kartal in the fourth round. The shot by Cartal clearly landed past the baseline, but was not called by an automated setup (called Hawk-Eye).
On Monday, club officials denounced “human errors” for surveillance. Club CEO Sally Bolton said the technology was “inadvertently exempt” by someone with three points in the match.