Wimbledon announces change after line call controversy

Wimbledon 2025

Venue: All England Club, June 30 – 13 .

After being accidentally deactivated in a contentious episode on Sunday, Wimbledon has changed its electronic line calling system to prevent “human error.”

The ball-tracking technology was disabled for one game in the fourth-round encounter between Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and British Sonay Kartal due to an “operator error.”

The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) announced in a statement to BBC Sport that “we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking.”

Due to the system changes we made, this error cannot now be repeated, despite the fact that the issue was caused by human error.

When the game-point was tied at 4-4, Kartal sent a backhand long, but the line-call system did not recognize this, so it instead made two automated “stop” calls.

Kartal won the game, but umpire Nico Helwerth chose to replay the point, which was opposed by Pavlyuchenkova and some pundits who criticized him for using his authority to overrule and dismiss the ball.

He “followed the established process,” according to the AELTC.

Helwerth is “having a rest day,” according to club CEO Sally Bolton, who spoke earlier on Monday.

Our umpires are regularly rotated, according to the organization. The umpires also need rest days throughout the tournament, according to Bolton, according to Bolton to BBC Sport.

He is resting today, he said. He’s fine, I promise.

Helwerth should have taken the initiative to overrule and call it out, Pavlyuchenkova told BBC Sport on Sunday evening.

She said, “I believe the chair umpire should be able to take the initiative because that’s what he’s there for.”

He’s seated on that chair because of that. Without the umpires, I believe we could have also had a game.

“I would like them to be a little more watchful when the ball is very close to him because they have no problem giving us fines and code violations for any reason,” he said.

The chair umpire is required to make a call if the electronic line-calling system doesn’t make one.

The point must be replayed if the chair umpire is unable to determine whether the ball was inside or out. This protocol only applies to points-ending plays or when a player terminates a game.

Line judges, who have been a fixture on courts for 147 years, were replaced by the electronic system at this year’s Championships.

The Hawk-Eye system, which was used by players to challenge calls made by line judges, is an “enhanced” version of the previous one.

A line-calling station is housed within Wimbledon’s grounds, where 50 operators use 144 screens to record the ball-tracking video captured by 12 cameras each court.

The ball-tracking technology’s accuracy is still in question, according to the AELTC. The Hawk-Eye operators, the review official, and the technology all work together to create the live ELC [electrical line calling] system. This did not occur.