One-click operator error led to Wimbledon line-calling failure

The Guardian

5 days ago

Wimbledon's electronic line-calling failure on Sunday came after an operator unintentionally switched off a set of cameras on Centre Court with one computer click, it is understood.
Bosses earlier defended the new system as they continued to blame Sunday's seven minutes of chaos on human error.
Sally Bolton, the chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, rejected the suggestion that human line judges should have been brought back in when the system was 'inadvertently deactivated' for six minutes and 49 seconds, missing three calls in one game.
It can now be revealed that the embarrassing failure came after an operator unintentionally unticked on a computer screen one set of cameras that monitored a part of Centre Court. The Hawk-Eye technology at the centre of the controversy has now been overhauled so that cameras cannot be turned off when the system is operational.
Sunday's malfunction came at a crucial stage of the fourth-round match between Sonay Kartal, 23, and the Russian veteran Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 34, when the system did not flag that a shot from the British player was out.
Bolton told reporters on Monday morning that the club was 'deeply disappointed' by the incident but retained confidence in the technology. 'The system was functional,' she said. 'It had been deactivated. We didn't need to put line judges back on the court again. We needed the system to be active.'
Bolton refused to go into detail about how the system had become deactivated, saying: 'In between matches, the system is deactivated, so it's not functioning when there isn't a match on court. So there is a process in place for activating and deactivating the system, and the humans are the people that need to do the activating and deactivating.
'So the way the system works is camera tracking of the ball. That system has been working optimally and effectively and was functioning.
'The issue was it was deactivated for a period of time on a portion of the court. But the way it works is that the camera tracking technology works in tandem with some humans, so the Hawk-Eye operator and the review official and all those things have to function effectively for it to work.'
The system replaced line judges, who had been a staple on court for more than a century, for the first time this year and such a high-profile malfunction is hugely embarrassing for the All England Club.
Multiple players including Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, the British No 1s, have complained about the new technology and questioned some its calls.
On Sunday, Pavlyuchenkova was furious with the umpire, Nico Helwerth, for ordering the point in question to be replayed rather than calling the ball out.
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'I don't know if it's in or it's out. How do I know? You cannot prove it, because she's local they can say whatever. You took the game away from me,' Pavlyuchenkova said after Kartal won the point and went on to break for a 5-4 lead. 'They have stolen the game from me, they stole it.'
Belinda Bencic, a Swiss player in the women's draw, joined the discussion on the system's accuracy.
'Of course, the incident on Centre Court yesterday was tough for Pavlyuchenkova. She definitely won the game,' Bencic said, adding that she had doubted some calls in her own matches. 'I don't trust it. I don't want to talk about it too much, but it's really stressful.
'Maybe I'm wrong … but I also see a lot of bad calls in other matches.'
Helwerth was absent from the umpire rota on Monday and Bolton told the BBC he was 'having a rest day'.
A Wimbledon spokesperson said: 'What is clear is that the ball-tracking technology has been working optimally during the championships. In this instance, there was a human error which deactivated the ball-tracking cameras on part of the server's side of the court.
'Following our review, we have removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking. While the source of the issue was human error, this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made.'