Wimbledon issued an apology following their failure of their new Electronic Line Calling (ELC) system amid the Women's Singles contest between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal. The controversy came to light after Pavlyuchenkova accused the German umpire of being 'scared' to make a decision against 'local' Sonay Kartal in the tournament.
The 2025 edition of Wimbledon has seen human line judges getting replaced by automated line calling. However, 'human error' still came to play as one of the workers failed to switch on the system for three crucial points at 4-4 in the opening set of the fourth-round tie.
The incident occurred when Kartal's backhand reportedly missed the baseline but was not called out. Instead, chair umpire Nico Helwerth ruled that the point must be replayed. Although Pavlyuchenkova went on to win the match, the correct call would have resulted a lead in the first set for her.
Pavlyuchenkova accused the referee and reportedly said, "Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me."
In a statement issued by Wimbledon spokesperson, it said that at least three calls were not picked up by the ELC, elaborating:
"It is now clear that the live ELC system, which was working optimally, was deactivated in error on part of the server's side of the court for one game by those operating the system. In that time, there were three calls not picked up by live ELC on the affected part of the court. Two of these were called by the chair umpire, who was not made aware that the system had been deactivated."
"It was a very crucial moment in the match" - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
After the 34-year-old's win, Pavlyuchenkova called out the chair umpire, stating that he ought to take the initiative and raised questions on match being under the control of robots. She said, as quoted by Sky Sports:
"It was very confusing in the beginning because the ball looked very long to me. It was a very crucial moment in the match. I expected a different decision. I just thought also the chair umpire could take the initiative. That's why he's there sitting on the chair. He also saw it out, he told me after the match. I don't know if it's something to do because she's local. I think we are losing a little bit of the charm of actually having human beings. Like during Covid, we didn't have ball boys. It just becomes a little bit weird and sort of robot orientated."
