Tim Henman hits out at Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper over Wimbledon controversy

Daily Mirror

5 days ago

Both Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper have complained about the introduction of the Electronic Ling Calling system (ELC) at Wimbledon this year, but Tim Henman has hit back at the pair
Tim Henman has labelled Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper's complaints about the Electronic Line Calling system employed for the first time at Wimbledon this year as "utter garbage".
Henman's words come despite the All England Club issuing an embarrassing apology on Sunday night after the new system was "deactivated" during Sonay Kartal's Centre Court win. But the four-time semi-finalist insisted the technology is 'absolutely 100 percent' accurate - provided it is switched on.
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Wimbledon officials issued a third statement on the cock-up on Monday, blaming 'human error' and claiming: 'This error cannot now be repeated.'
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But last week both British No.1's were unhappy with the technology at the first Wimbledon without human line judges. Draper claimed: 'I don't think it's 100% accurate'.
Raducanu is not a fan and made her feelings very clear on the subject after her third round defeat to Aryna Sabalenka on Friday night, stating: "It's kind of disappointing, the tournament here, that the calls can be so wrong.
"For the most part they've been okay. It's just, like, I've had a few in my other matches, too, that have been very wrong.
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However, BBC analyst Henman, who is also an All England Club committee member, said: 'The narrative around players questioning the accuracy of the calling is just utter garbage. I was commentating on some of those matches, and when you see it in real time, you sort of think: 'Oh, I'd like to see that one again.'
'And then when you go back, as I've done, and look at them in slow motion. They are on the outside edge of the line, they hit the line. You can sometimes see even that little puff of white chalk, whatever it is. Is the technology accurate? Absolutely, 100 percent.
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'You've got to take into account when you are the player, you're seeing the ball and you're hoping: 'Oh, I hope that's going to go out'.
'We have the technology, let's use it because the ball is traveling around 140 miles an hour and it's really difficult to call the lines. It's garbage that the players say it is garbage.'
An All England Club statement read: '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.'
Umpire Nico Helmwerth did not officiate on Monday.