Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova overcame a line-calling technology malfunction on a key point en route to defeating local favorite Sonay Kartal 7-6 (3), 6-4 on Sunday to make her second Wimbledon quarterfinal nine years after her first appearance.
Pavlyuchenkova last made the quarterfinals at the All England Club in 2016, when she lost to eventual champion Serena Williams. The nine-year span between Wimbledon quarterfinal appearances is tied for the second longest by any woman in the Open era, after Svetlana Kuznetsova went 10 years between her appearances in 2007 and 2017.
“I always thought I was not good enough on grass, so this is incredible for me. Especially with me getting older, I am so impressed and proud for competing with the younger girls,” Pavlyuchenkova, 34, said in her on-court interview.
Pavlyuchenkova, the 2021 French Open runner-up, won in straight sets despite the Hawk-Eye system deactivating at an inopportune time and tough conditions that necessitated the closing of the Centre Court roof.
Pavlyuchenkova was serving and had a game point late in the first set when Kartal hit a backhand that landed beyond the opposite baseline — clearly out, TV replays showed. But there was no sound from the automated line-calling technology — adopted by the All England Club for the first time this year to replace line judges — and Pavlyuchenkova stopped play.
Chair umpire Nico Helwerth delayed play while he made a phone call from his stand and decided to have a do-over on the point at 4-all, much to the dismay of Pavlyuchenkova.
The tournament looked into it afterward and blamed “human error,” saying that the line-calling setup “was deactivated in error on part of the server’s side of the court for one game by those operating the system,” according to an All England Club spokesperson, who added: “We continue to have full confidence in the accuracy of the ball-tracking technology.”
The All England Club confirmed that the chair umpire could have made the call himself, “but at that point both he and the Review Official made the decision to call ‘Stop, Stop.'”
The spokesperson also said Pavlyuchenkova and Kartal received apologies from the club.
When play eventually resumed, Pavlyuchenkova missed a forehand on the replay, then lost the game a few points later.
“You took the game away from me,” a fuming Pavlyuchenkova told Helwerth at the changeover after the game ended.
Pavlyuchenkova, who is Russian, also said in the moment that the decision-making there went in Kartal’s favor because she is a local player.
Pavlyuchenkova recovered, however, saving a set point when Kartal served at 5-4, and then winning 15 of the final 23 points to take the opening set.
“My mental toughness is getting better,” Pavlyuchenkova said on court after the match. “I used to be a little bit crazy in my head! But now I am learning to fight point by point.”
Later, at her news conference, Pavlyuchenkova said Helwerth told her following the match that he did think Kartal’s shot landed out.
“I think he felt bad, a little bit,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “He probably felt like he should have taken the initiative and called it out.”
She also said Helwerth “probably was scared to take such a big decision.”
Asked how she’d feel about it had she lost the match, Pavlyuchenkova responded with a laugh: “I would just say that I hate Wimbledon and never come back.”
She also cracked that chair umpires are “very good at giving fines and code violations” and never miss those, but perhaps it would be beneficial if they did a better job of noticing mistaken calls.
Kartal said she couldn’t see where her shot went.
“That situation is a rarity. I don’t think it’s really ever happened — if it has. It’s tough. What can you do? The umpire’s trying his best in that situation, and he handled it fine,” Kartal said. “I think the system just malfunctioned a little bit, and the fairest way was what he did: replay the point.”
From 2007 through last year, players were allowed to challenge in-or-out calls at Wimbledon; a video review was employed to decide whether a line judge’s — or chair umpire’s — ruling was correct.
That challenge system was removed for the current tournament, but Pavlyuchenkova suggested it should be brought back to aid chair umpires, noting, “We should probably look into something else to have better decisions.”
The French Open is now the only Grand Slam tournament that still uses line judges instead of electronic calls.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
