Controversy at Wimbledon over a failure of the electronic line-calling system: "My game has been stolen."

After 147 years, the line umpires at Wimbledon have disappeared. They've been replaced by technology and the so-called live line calling system, as tennis has revolutionized its speed and the quality of the human eye at certain points in matches has become increasingly questionable. It was, however, a tradition in this sport, to be able to converse with the chair umpire about whether the bounce had been good or bad, to resort to replays to decide whether it was good or bad, to trust the human race. But in 2025, all ATP tournaments and three of the four Grand Slams ( except Roland Garros ) have decided to rely on technology. But this one, too, is wrong.

She offered some confusion at the Mutua Madrid Open, with Zverev and Lys the protagonists of dubious footprints in the sand that technology challenged the human eye . But she seemed completely confident on the grass, with no shadows or sand to hinder her reading, until the match between Sonay Kartal and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

In the first set, at 4-4, Kartal sent a backhand long. However, the technicians didn't make any calls, creating a few minutes of confusion as Pavlyuchenkova stopped the point, warning that it had been clearly out of bounds. Replays showed she was telling the truth, but with the introduction of the electronic system, the images, in principle, cannot change the decision.

However, chair umpire Nico Helwerth consulted with his superiors via walkie-talkie and decided that, since the technology hadn't registered the bounce, the point should be replayed. A decision that went against Pavlyuchenkova, who lost the point that should have been added to her score. She also suffered a break afterward, making it 5-4 and serving for her opponent.

The Russian expressed her anger to the chair umpire. "Since they're the home team, they can say whatever they want. They took my game away. They stole my game. They stole my game," she said during the exchange of courts.

However, the Russian managed to recover in the next turn and ended up taking the set and the victory 7-6 (3) and 6-4. And this is how she explained the incident afterwards: “At first it was very confusing because the ball seemed very long to me. I tried to play it, but it was quite long, so it was difficult to play it. Then I stopped. The chair umpire stopped the point. I was sure it was my point because it was so clear. I thought about sitting in the chair, and we waited for the decision because the system wasn’t working, but I was waiting to hear if they would say the ball was in or out. Instead, they just said, ‘The point needs to be replayed.’ It was a crucial moment in the match, and I was expecting a different decision. The chair umpire could also take the initiative. That’s why he’s sitting there in the chair. And he saw it out, too.”

What would have happened if you lost the match because of that decision? he was asked afterward. "I would have said I'd never go back to Wimbledon. That I'd hate grass and Wimbledon," he joked afterward. But technology failed, and it could have changed everything.

Carlos Alcaraz also doubted the system on some decisions in his match against Jan Lennard-Struff. "This isn't the first time this has happened. I'm not sure about some decisions," he told the chair umpire during a difficult moment in the first set when the system failed to signal out a ball from the German that he saw as long.

“It’s good to raise this issue for the future, because if something like this happens at such an important moment in the match, I think we should have a seeding system like they have in football or something like that, so that everything is clear and we can move forward immediately instead of just guessing,” the Russian commented afterward, having received clarification from the tournament: “They told me that the system wasn’t working. It’s like human error. I understand that can happen to anyone at any time. But it’s a very important match, a very important event. I think that, since we already have an electronic system and have invested so much in this, we should look for another option to make better decisions,” she concluded.