Category sport-news

Taylor Fritz’s quarter-final victory over Karen Khachanov on Tuesday left the under-fire line technology system in a troubling state.

When a Fritz forehand landed well inside the baseline, the Swedish umpire Louise Azemar Engzell was forced to stop a point in the fourth set’s opening game on Court One.

The phrase “fault” rather than “out” and the ball’s position suggested that Fritz’s serve was still being tracked rather than a rally, and the situation required to be replayed.

The ball from Fritz’s first serve was still being retrieved when he began lining up his second, according to the tournament’s organizers, who claimed the system had failed to reset.

According to an All England Club statement, “the player’s service motion began while the BBG (ball boy or girl) was still crossing the net, and the system didn’t recognize the point’s beginning.”

The chair umpire ordered that the discussion be replayed, as it happened.

Following a major error in Sonay Kartal’s fourth-round defeat to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the women’s draw, Wimbledon officials earlier this week stated that they were confident of avoiding further issues with the technology.

The new system failed to call out when Kartal’s shot went far behind the baseline.

For the first time this year, a fully automated system has replaced the human-line judges at Wimbledon in a way that matches the Australian Open and US Open.

Other players have raised concerns and glitches about the technology, including British actors Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu.

Fritz won 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7/4), but the controversy did not prevent him from reaching his first Wimbledon semifinal.

It’s a more effective system, they say.

Despite the most recent technological flaw, Fritz defended the line system.

“It occasionally occurs. He said that because I got a first serve out of it, I believe I lost the point in that situation in any case.

“There will be some issues here and there,” he said. Since I’m not going to lie, I still believe it’s much better to have the electronic line calling call the lines rather than the umpires.

I like not having to consider challenging calls in the middle of a discussion, as I previously mentioned earlier in the week. I like that there are no arguments over calls and other issues.

“The ball gets called, and we know that,” according to the statement. It’s a better system, in my opinion.

Khachanov criticized the system’s use this year and expressed disappointment with it.

“Look, I’m more for line umpires, to be honest. We’ve seen a few electronic line calls, but they must be very precise and without any errors. Why is this taking place, he said, is fragile.

“Today, I believe there were a few calls,” he said. I’m not sure whether or not it actually touches the line. It’s a very questionable question.

The machine calls it “as well as out” at one point during the rally. You may be wondering if letting machines do what they want is sometimes frightening.

What are my options? I can debate and be enraged, or I can just keep playing. Not at my disposal. It has already occurred. That’s it, and I have to kind of accept it.

One of his attorneys told AFP on Monday that Kylian Mbappe’s complaint of moral harassment against his former club Paris Saint-Germain had been withdrawn.

Before Wednesday’s Club World Cup semi-final between Mbappe’s current team Real Madrid and PSG, Pierre-Olivier Sur announced that “we are withdrawing our civil action.”

An investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office last month following Mbappe’s complaint about PSG’s treatment of him at the start of the 2023-24 season.

He claims that PSG forced him to train with players who the club was trying to offload after refusing to accept a new contract.

The French players’ union filed a complaint about it last year, and it has also had an impact on other footballers.

Mbappe was not invited to a pre-season trip to Asia in 2023, and he missed the team’s opening game that year. He was later called back after discussions with the club.

Read more about Arsenal signing Zubimendi for Spain.

After seven seasons with PSG, the 26-year-old made his summer debut with Real Madrid.

In 308 games for the French club, who won the Champions League for the first time last year after the striker left, he scored 256 goals.

Mbappe, the country’s captain, is also fighting with PSG to recoup the 55 million euros ($64.45 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses he claims the club owes him.

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.