Wimbledon bosses are “deeply disappointed” by Sunday’s electronic line calling failure but insist they are confident it will not happen again.
Officials blamed human error for the incident at a crucial stage of the fourth-round match between Sonay Kartal and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, with the system inadvertently turned off and not flagging that a shot from the British player was out.
Pavlyuchenkova, who would have moved 5-4 ahead had the call been made, was furious with umpire Nico Helwerth for ordering the point to be replayed, accusing him of stealing the game and the tournament of home bias.
Organisers apologised to both players, and chief executive Sally Bolton said: “It was important for us to to explain as much as we could at that point in time what we believed had happened, and to apologise to the players for it happening in the first place.
“We’re deeply disappointed that this has happened in the Championships. It was a human error. The ball-tracking technology is working effectively.”
The system has replaced line judges for the first time this year and such a high-profile malfunction is hugely embarrassing for the All England Club.
Bolton refused to go into the details of how the error had happened, or to explain what safeguards had been put in place during a briefing with reporters on Monday morning.
“I wasn’t sat there, so I don’t know what happened,” she said. “It was clearly deactivated in error, because you wouldn’t ordinarily deactivate a set of cameras mid-match intentionally.
“Once this happened, we did a full review of all of our systems and processes to check all of those kinds of things and to make sure that, both historically and moving forward, we have made the appropriate changes that we needed to make. So we’re absolutely confident in the system.”
There was also criticism of Helwerth for not calling the ball out once it became clear the system had failed and instead ordering the point to be replayed, with Kartal going on to win the game, leaving her serving for the first set.
The German umpire, one of the sport’s leading officials, was notably absent from the schedule on Monday, although Wimbledon organisers insisted it was simply his day off.
Pavlyuchenkova said in her post-match press conference: “I just thought also the chair umpire could take initiative. That’s why he’s there sitting on the chair. He also saw it out, he told me after the match. He probably was scared to take such a big decision.”
Bolton cited a breakdown in communication between the review official and the umpire, with Helwerth unaware that the system had not been working previously during the game.
It is also a big week in a different type of court for the All England Club, with a judicial review into the decision to grant planning permission for its expansion into neighbouring Wimbledon Park taking place at the High Court on Tuesday and Wednesday.
There has been vehement local opposition to the scheme, which will see 39 new courts, including an 8,000-seat show court, built on the site of a former golf club.
Wimbledon chair Debbie Jevans will be at the High Court on Tuesday, and Bolton said: “We remain really confident that we’ll make the progress we need to make.”
