The Wimbledon organization has apologized for a fault with the automatic line technology during Sunday’s eighth final between Britain’s Sonay Kartal and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova from Russia. The new system came under fire due to a fault.
In the first set, Kartal clearly hit the ball out on a game point for Pavlyuchenkova, but a call from the automatic line technology failed to materialize. After consultation with the organization, the umpire had the point replayed, after which the Russian lost her serve and Kartal took a 5-4 lead.
Pavlyuchenkova was furious and snapped at the umpire during the changeover: “Because she (Kartal, ed.) is from here, they can say anything. You took the game away from me.” She then recovered and reached the quarterfinals by winning in two sets: 7-6 (3) and 6-4.
This year, the automatic line technology replaces all line judges at Wimbledon for the first time. According to Swiss Belinda Bencic, the system is the subject of conversation in the locker room.
Several players, such as Britons Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper, had previously expressed their concerns about the system. In their eyes, it would not be entirely accurate. The Wimbledon system uses artificial intelligence.
Wimbledon: ‘This was a human error’
Wimbledon defended the system in a statement about the commotion, but later admitted that the system had not worked for one game in the match between Pavlyuchenkova and Kartal due to a “human error.”
“But we still have every confidence in the accuracy of the ball tracking technology,” the organization wrote, adding that they had made the necessary changes to the process.