Sonay Kartal’s clash with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was paused after a failure with the line calling system. Kartal hit a shot extremely long which Pavlyuchenkova let bounce.
Pavlyuchenkova was serving with advantage at 4-4 in the first set when Kartal’s forehand bounced around a foot beyond the baseline.
The electronic line calling system, which has replaced line judges for the first time this year, failed to call it “out”.
Pavlyuchenkova immediately stopped play and German umpire Nico Helwerth said “stop, stop” before announcing to the crowd: “Ladies and gentleman we are going to check the system is up and running because there was no audio call for the ball on the baseline.”
He then made an emergency call to the tournament supervisor to seek advice on how to proceed.
Pavlyuchenkova complained to the umpire at the change of ends: “I don’t know if it’s in or it’s out. How do I know? How can you prove it? Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me.”
The electronic line calling system has come under huge fire this week, with Emma Raducanu, Jack Draper and Carlos Alcaraz all criticising it.
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