Wimbledon has been hit by yet another electric line-calling glitch with an umpire forced to halt a match on Tuesday to boos from an angry crowd.
Hawk-Eye went off randomly during Taylor Fritz’s quarter-final victory over Karen Khachanov – despite the ball being nowhere near the lines.
The ‘malfunction’ occurred in the fourth set when both players were in the middle of a rally with a ‘fault’ called during play in a truly bizarre incident.
‘Ladies and gentleman we will replay the last point because of a malfunction,’ umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell told spectators on Court 1. ‘The system is now working.’
Fritz lost the replayed point – and dropped his serve – but recovered to secure a 6-3 6-4 1-6 7-6 victory and reach the Wimbledon semi-finals.
Why did Hawk-Eye malfunction this time?
The All England Club said in a statement: ‘The player’s service motion began while the BBG (Ball Boys and Girls) 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.’
Electric line calling has been one of the biggest talking points of this year’s Championships with a number of errors impacting the tennis in SW19.
The technology is being used at Wimbledon for the first time in 2025, replacing line judges for the first time in 148 years.
British stars Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper have both raised concerns over the system’s reliability, with the latter adamant it’s not ‘100% accurate’.
There was also a major problem with Hawk-Eye in Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s 7-6 6-4 victory over Britain’s Sonay Kartal in the last 16.
Wimbledon umpire Nico Helwerth ordered the two players to replay a crucial point at 4-4 in the first set after the electronic line calling system was accidentally turned off due to a human error.
Kartal’s initial shot was visibly out and Pavlyuchenkova would’ve won the game if the technology was working correctly.
What is Hawk-Eye?
Up to 18 cameras – developed by Hawk-Eye – are now situated around each court at Wimbledon to track the progress of the ball and determine whether it is in or out.
They have replaced the 300 line judges that have been used for the past 148 years, with Wimbledon now using the same technology as other Grand Slam events and key tournaments across the ATP Tour.
But Pavlyuchenkova lost the replayed point and was broken to trail 5-4, with the Russian left furious and claiming ‘they stole a game from me’.
Following the incident, Wimbledon announced they had taken action to remove the possibility of ‘human error’ with the electric line-calling system.
Jamie Murray, speaking exclusively to Metro, is convinced that players would rather have electric line calling at Wimbledon than line judges.
‘Players overall would rather have electric line calling than line judges,’ Murray said.
‘There’s 18 courts going at all times through the day. The system might work for 10 million calls but then it fails on one or two – and if it happens on a show court or whatever – maybe it blows up more than it should.
‘It’s the same system we’ve been using for the whole year and at all the other major events. There’s not been many issues (outside of Wimbledon) as far as I’m aware – so it’s been working fine generally through the year.’
