Earlier today, a major controversy took the shine off Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s brilliant victory over the local star Sonay Kartal. At a crucial juncture in the first set, a line call went against the Russian star; a technological glitch failed to catch that the ball went long. Additionally, the chair umpire, Nico Helwerth, awarded the point to Kartal as he hadn’t received any signal that the technology wasn’t working. This didn’t go down well with Pavlyuchenkova, who lashed out at the umpire after the match.

During the post-match press conference, Pavlyuchenkova was asked if the umpire should’ve intervened as the ball was inches out. Replying to this, she stated, “I think it’s also difficult for him. He was probably scared to take such a big decision. But I think they should. That’s what they’re there for, sitting on the chair. That’s why we have a chair umpire. Otherwise, I think, soon, let’s just play without them. Right? Then we’re gonna have everything automatic.”

Further, she went on to add, “I think we’re losing a little bit of this charm of actually having human being ball boys… like, during Covid, we didn’t have ball boys. It becomes a bit weird and robot sort of oriented. They’re very good at giving fines though and code violations. This, they don’t miss. Every time, any little thing, they’re just right there on it. I’d prefer they looked at the lines and calling the errors, mistakes better.”

Despite the line-call controversy grabbing all the attention, Pavlyuchenkova didn’t lose focus and went on to defeat Kartal in straight sets 7-6 (3), 6-4. She kept her composure brilliantly after being ditched by technology and entered the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon Championships. Nonetheless, she made her feelings felt and even had an argument with the chair umpire after the technology glitch. “I don’t know if it’s in or out. How do I know? How can you prove it? You took the game away from me … They stole the game from me. They stole it,” Pavlyuchenkova cried after losing the game and handing Kartal the advantage. However, she came back strongly and won the set in the tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, Kartal also admitted that it was a rare case and shouldn’t have happened in the first place. She opened up about the incident and revealed if the point should’ve been awarded to Pavlyuchenkova.

Sonay Kartal drops first reaction to the line-call controversy

While the ball went inches out of the baseline, it would’ve been difficult for Kartal to spot if it was a clear-cut decision. Thus, she went by the chair umpire’s call and didn’t award the point to her opponent. Asked if she should’ve intervened and given the point to her opponent in fair play, Kartal made a candid revelation.

She said, “It’s unfortunate for me. I’m quite short. So where the net tape is, a lot of the time I lose my vision so I can’t look over the baseline. But from where I was, I couldn’t see. From my point, I felt like I hit the backhand clean. Maybe I have to look at the replay. My vision was kind of blinded. When the point stopped, I didn’t really know what was… I thought maybe it was a let or something came on the court. I couldn’t see.”

Nonetheless, the incident didn’t have any bearing on the result of the match, with Pavlyuchenkova moving into the quarters. She will face the winner of the match between Linda Noskova and Amanda Anisimova and the match can be followed on EssentiallySports’ Live Blog. Can Pavlyuchenkova win her maiden Grand Slam title at Wimbledon? Let us know your views in the comments below.