Wimbledon Line-Calling Glitch Sparks Outrage and Renews Debate Over AI Officiating

 London — Wimbledon’s new fully automated line‑calling system, pioneered this year and replacing traditional judges, came under intense scrutiny during Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s last‑16 match against Britain’s Sonay Kartal. With the score at 4‑4 in the first set, Kartal played a shot that clearly landed long—but the system failed to register it. A confused electronic “STOP STOP” echoed across Centre Court, prompting umpire Nico Helwerth to halt the point and call a replay, as the Hawk‑Eye system had not tracked the ball en.wikipedia.org+15reuters.com+15essentiallysports.com+15.

Pavlyuchenkova, visibly frustrated, confronted the umpire on court, declaring: “You stole the game from me… because she is local, they can say whatever” indiatimes.com+3reuters.com+3essentiallysports.com+3. Video replay later confirmed the ball was out. Tournament officials attributed the error to “operator error” and noted the umpire followed protocol thetimes.co.uk+2reuters.com+2essentiallysports.com+2.

Despite the disruption, Pavlyuchenkova regained composure to win 7‑6(3), 6‑4, crediting her resilience after saving set point and deploying aggressive groundstrokes, including 36 winners to Kartal’s 14 reuters.com+14reuters.com+14essentiallysports.com+14.

The incident has escalated broader concerns about the reliability of electronic officiating. Current and former players—including Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper—have voiced doubts, citing other questionable calls earlier in the tournament reuters.com+7reuters.com+7reuters.com+7. Raducanu reflected, “No, I don’t trust the system… there were some pretty dodgy ones,” while Draper highlighted limitations when a call misses, saying “it can’t be 100 per cent accurate” essentiallysports.com.

The All England Club defends the move toward automation, emphasizing that players previously supported reducing human error. Debbie Jevans confirmed that human line judges remain on standby to assist when required en.wikipedia.org+7talksport.com+7wsj.com+7. Yet the Centre Court incident, described by some as “rare” and “unprecedented”, has reignited debate over balancing tradition, consistency, and technological risk wsj.com.

Critics point out that replacing human judges removes a key match-time safety net. Traditionally, chair umpires could overrule flawed calls—a safeguard now diminished. Fans have also voiced concern over the loss of on-court drama and accountability without human judges present .