Fritz advances to Wimbledon semis as line-calling technology fails again

Taylor Fritz booked his first Wimbledon semi-final on Tuesday with a 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7/4) victory over Karen Khachanov, in a match overshadowed by another embarrassing malfunction of the tournament’s electronic line-calling system.

Swedish umpire Louise Azemar Engzell halted play in the fourth set’s opening game when “fault” was incorrectly called after a Fritz forehand clearly landed inside the baseline. Tournament officials later explained that the system failed to reset because a ball kid was still retrieving Fritz’s first serve as he began his second, confusing the software into tracking the serve rather than the rally.

Despite the glitch, Fritz defended the technology. “There’s going to be some issues here and there,” he said. “To be honest, I still think it’s much better… I do like not having to think about challenging calls.”

Khachanov was less forgiving, calling some calls “very questionable” and warning that it can be “scary to let machine do what they want.”

The All England Club had insisted earlier this week that similar problems, like the error in Sonay Kartal’s match, would not recur. Yet the fully automated system replacing human line judges has faced widespread criticism from players including Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper.

Fritz now awaits either Carlos Alcaraz or Cameron Norrie in the semi-finals.

(Source: AFP)