After being forced to apologize for an embarrassing operator error, Wimbledon chiefs have changed their electronic line-calling system to eliminate the possibility of human error.
Following the issue that occurred during their fourth-round encounter on Centre Court on Sunday, officials apologized to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal.
Following a thorough investigation, the organisers admitted that the technology had been disabled in an incorrect location of the court for a game, with the error only emerging when a shot from Britain’s Kartal, which clearly missed the baseline, was not called out.
All England Club officials removed the option to manually turn off ball-tracking in response to criticism of the 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.
The call, which had been made, would have given Russia’s Pavlyuchenkova a 5-4 lead in the opening set, but umpire Nico Helwerth decided to play the point again, with Kartal winning.
The Russian, who won the match in straight sets, claimed that the official was biased because she was “local” and could say anything. You robbed me of my game.
Wimbledon claimed in a statement on Sunday that the system had been “deactivated in error” by the system’s operators for one game.
Sally Bolton, the head of the All England Club, told reporters on Monday that the technology was “working optimally” before Wimbledon made the announcement about the system change.
She claimed that the chair (umpire) was unaware that the tracking system had been deactivated due to human error, which led to the issue.
“We’ve spoken to the players, we’ve offered our sincere apologies, and we’ve quickly moved on to reviewing everything that transpired yesterday afternoon and making the necessary adjustments.”
In line with the Australian Open and US Open, a fully automated system will now serve as Wimbledon’s replacement judges in 2025.
Other players, including British stars Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper, expressed concerns about the technology in Sunday’s game, though.
Two of the 80 former line judges who serve as match assistants on each court who assist the umpire are on each court.
Bolton claimed that returning them to the courts was not necessary.
She claimed that the system was operational. It had been turned off. We needed the system to function, not just to reinstate line judges.
Source: Channels TV
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