Wimbledon have blamed a ballboy for the latest “malfunction” of the tournament’s Electronic Line Calling (ELC). And Russian Karen Khachanov claimed: “Sometimes it’s scary to let machine do what they want, you know.” These are the first Championships without human line judges.
The All England Club were forced to apologise on Sunday when a point had to be replayed when the technology was accidentally “deactivated”. On Court One today, a rally in the quarter-final between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachenov was interrupted by the computerised call of “Fault” after three shots.
The umpire stopped play and announced: “We will replay the point due to a malfunction. The system is now working.” Fritz won the match 6-3 6-4 1-6 7-6 to reach the semi-finals.
And the All England Club then explained that movement by a ballboy on Court One had prevented the ELC starting – and the system thought Fritz’s forehand was the serve which went over the service line and was called out.
A spokesperson said: “The player’s service motion began while the BBG was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn’t recognise the start of the point. As such the Chair Umpire instructed the point be replayed.”
Asked for his reaction, world No.20 Khachanov said:”To be honest, I’m more for line umpires, to be honest. I don’t know. You feel a little bit court too big, too alone without line umpires.
“At the same time looks like AI and electronic line calls has to be very precise and no mistakes, but we’ve seen a couple. That’s questionable why this is happening. Is just like error of the machine or what’s the reason?
“Like today I think there were a few calls. I don’t know, very questionable if it’s really touching the line or not. At the same time during one point, the machine call it just out during the rally. Sometimes it’s scary to let machine do what they want, you know?
“Yeah, what can I do? I can argue, or I can be angry on it or just continue playing. It’s not in my power. It’s already happened. I need to kind of accept it, and that’s it.
“It was not kind of super important point. If it would happen on a break point or deuce or maybe tiebreaker, okay, you can get more mad. But it was just beginning of the set, 15-Love or Love-15. I don’t remember. It was maybe not that important moment. That’s why I stayed really focused and calm.”
