Wimbledon announces change to line-calling tech to remove 'human error' after 'deeply disappointing' blunder
Wimbledon has announced changes to its electronic line calling system after it was marred by controversy on Sunday, missing three vital calls.
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Organisers apologised yesterday after the AI line-calling system on Centre Court was switched off by mistake, missing three calls in a single game.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova claimed a game was 'stolen' from her when there was no 'out' call after British star Sonay Kartal's backhand went long in the opening set of their fourth-round match.
Pavlyuchenkova stopped playing after seeing the ball go long, with chair umpire Nico Helwerth halting play.
The All England Club originally said the system was "deactivated on the point in question" due to an "operator error".
Read more: Wimbledon issues apology over missed line calls after technology 'deactivated in error'
A spokesperson said later following further investigation on Sunday that it was found the technology was "deactivated in error on part of the server's side of the court for one game".
Now, Wimbledon has confirmed changes have been made to the system to remove the possibility of "human error".
"Following our review, we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking," The All England Club confirmed.
"While the source of the issue was human error, this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made," it added.
Earlier on Monday, Wimbledon bosses said they were “deeply disappointed” by Sunday’s incident but insisted they are confident it will not happen again.
Chief executive Sally Bolton said: “It was important for us 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.”