At a time when it was going all smooth at Wimbledon, a major blunder seems to have caught up at Wimbledon big time. This year, the grass-court Grand Slam tournament decided to introduce an electronic line-calling system, replacing the line judges with it to remove any chances of human errors in the tournament. However, a major technological failure occurred during the match between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal, raising the eyebrows of Coco Gauff’s ex-coach Brad Gilbert and thousands of fans.

During the first set, Sonay Kartal hit the ball long, but due to a technological failure, the call wasn’t made, which cost Pavlyuchenkova a game at a crucial juncture in the first set. Serving at advantage at 4-4 in the first set, the technological failure handed Kartal the point and Pavlyuchenkova eventually went on to lose the game but won the set in the tiebreaker.

As the call wasn’t made even though Kartal’s return landed long, the chair umpire said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to check the system is up and running because there was no audio call for the ball on the baseline,” and prompted a quick check, which ended in an admission from the umpire stating, “The electronic line calling system was unable to track the last point so we will replay the last point.” 

If that wasn’t enough to infuriate the Russian, Kartal actually won the replayed point and served while cameras set up by the BBC picked up Pavlyuchenkova confronting the officials, arguing, “I don’t know if it’s in or it’s out. How do I know? How can you prove it? Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me.” This incident left a bad mark on Gilbert and the fans, who criticized Wimbledon’s failure on social media.

Coco Gauff’s former coach Brad Gilbert joins fans in slamming Wimbledon’s costly mistake

With Pavlyuchenkova facing the brunt of the error, the blunder didn’t go down well with Gilbert, who took to X to slam Wimbledon, saying, “I’m shocked they couldn’t just look at Hawkeye with the electronic line call down for one point absolutely cost scrabble that 4all game on a ball that was 4-5 inches long on game point.” Gilbert was disappointed to see such errors taking place at an elite tournament like Wimbledon and expressed his frustration in this matter.

Subsequently, many fans joined Coco Gauff’s ex-coach in slamming the poor failure of technology at an elite tournament like Wimbledon. A fan wrote, “Total injustice! @Wimbledon- do better! Never saw such a failure! @WTA,” calling on the WTA and Wimbledon to ensure that such costly errors aren’t repeated in the future. Moreover, some of the fans even wanted Wimbledon to make a U-turn on their decision to remove the line judges and replace them with technology. “Complete crap. Technology is great until it’s not. Bring back the lines people,” a fan said, as he called out the latest setback faced by the use of technology.

Although Pavlyuchenkova lost that game, she broke back to force the tiebreaker. A fan praised her resilience, although she lost the set, saying, “Horrible call; glad she broke back.” Nonetheless, the fan wasn’t happy, as the costly error eventually cost the Russian star the game. Lastly, one of the fans issued a controversial statement as the call went against the former French Open finalist. “Wimbledon hates Russians,” the fan exclaimed, as this was the latest setback that a Russian player had faced at this venue.

Pavlyuchenkova eventually went on to win the match in straight sets, 7-6 (3), 6-4, as Kartal bowed out of the tournament, which ended the local hopes. The Russian star will next face the winner of the match between Linda Noskova and Amanda Anisimova in the last 8. The match can be followed on EssentiallySports’ Live Blog. It is about time that Wimbledon found a permanent fix to the constant issues with the technology so that such errors are eliminated in the future.