Wimbledon suffers yet another tech blunder a day after announcing change to line-calling system
Wimbledon’s latest electronic line call blunder was due to the movement of a ball boy, which comes just a day after it announced changes to the system to remove "human error".
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The faltering system was thrust back into the spotlight on Tuesday afternoon following an embarrassing malfunction during Taylor Fritz’s four-set quarter-final victory over Karen Khachanov.
Swedish umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell called ‘stop’ in the opening game of the fourth set on Court One when ‘fault’ was incorrectly announced after a Fritz forehand landed well inside the baseline.
The cry of ‘fault’, rather than ‘out’, and positioning of the ball suggested the technology was still tracking Fritz’s serve as opposed to a rally.
Tournament organisers verified that theory, explaining the system had failed to reset because the ball from Fritz’s first serve was still being retrieved when he started lining up his second.
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Neither player showed much reaction as match official Azemar-Engzell ordered the point be replayed.
Fritz led 2-1 on sets at that stage before completing a 6-3 6-4 1-6 7-6 (4) victory in two hours and 36 minutes.“
The player’s service motion began while the BBG (ball boy or girl) was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn’t recognise the start of the point,” read a statement from the All England Club.
“As such the chair umpire instructed the point be replayed.”
It comes after SW19 organisers apologised on Sunday 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".
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".
Wimbledon then 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.