Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova overcame a malfunction in line call technology with key points midway to defeat local favourite Sonay Kartal 7-6 (3), 6-4, winning the second Wimbledon quarterfinals nine years since her first appearance.
Pavlyuchenkova finally made his quarterfinals at the All Ingland Club in 2016, when he lost to final champion Serena Williams. The nine-year range between the Wimbledon quarterfinals is tied for the second longest time by any woman in the open era after Svetlana Kuznetsoso’s 10 years between the 2007-2017 appearances.
“This is incredible for me because I always thought it wasn’t enough on the grass. I’m particularly impressed and proud to compete with younger girls, especially as I’m older.”
Pavlyuchenkova, the 2021 French Open runner-up, won the straight set despite the difficult conditions requiring centre court roof closure, despite the Hawkeye system being disabled under inappropriate times and tough conditions.
Pavlyuchenkova was playing game points late in the first set when Kartal hit a backhand that landed over the opposing baseline. However, there was no sound from automated line call technology (for the first time this year, the All England club adopted to replace line judges).
Chairman Judge Nico Herworth decided to delay play while he called out from his stands and to Pavlyuchenkova’s disappointment, he decided to start over with points at 4-All.
The tournament then looked into it, denounced “human errors” and said that the line call setup “”people running the system” had been deactivated as errorless in some of the servers, which are part of the servers for one game.
All England Club confirmed that the referee may have called himself.
The spokesman also said Pavlyuchenkova and Kartal received an apology from the club.
When play finally resumed, Pavlyuchenkova missed the forehand in a replay and lost the game a few points later.
“You took the game away from me,” Pavlyuchenkova, who smoked, told Helworth in a conversion after the match ended.
Pavlyuchenkova, a Russian, also said at the moment when the decisions there were Kartal’s favors, as she is a local player.
However, Pavlyuchenkova recovered and saved the set points when Kartal served 5-4, earning 15 of his final 23 points to win the opening set.
“My mental strength is getting better,” Pavlyuchenkova told court after the match. “I used to be a bit crazy in my head! But now I’m learning to fight point by point.”
Later at her press conference, Pavlyuchenkova said that Helwerth told her that he thought Kartal’s shot had landed after the match.
“I think he’s feeling a little sick,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “He felt that he probably should have taken the initiative and called it.”
She also said that Helworth was “probably scared to make such a big decision.”
If she loses the match, she asked how she feels about it, Pavlyuchenkova replied with a laugh: “I hate Wimbledon and I’ll say I’ll never come back again.”
She also cracks that the chairman’s judges are “very good at giving fines and code violations” and won’t miss them, but it’s probably beneficial if they did a better job of realizing the wrong call.
Kartal said he didn’t know where her shot went.
“The situation is unusual. I don’t think it really happened – if you have it, it’s difficult. What can you do? The judge did his best in that situation and he handled it well,” Kartal said. “I think the fairest way he did was just because the system malfunctioned a bit. Play the points.”
From 2007 until last year, players were allowed to try their mobile phones at Wimbledon. A video review was adopted to determine whether Judge Line or the chairman of the judge was correct.
That challenge system has been removed for the current tournament, but Pavlyuchenkova suggested that it should be returned to assist the chairman’s judgement.
The French Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that still uses Line Judges instead of electronic calls.
ESPN research and Associated Press contributed to this report.
