By Charlie Gordon Patrick Austen-Hardy
Emma Raducanu expressed her dissatisfaction with the Wimbledon officials’ decision to part with line judges and install the Electronic Line Calling (ELC) system. For the first time ever, the ELC has been employed at SW19 this year instead of line judges, something that disappointed Raducanu and many other players. The 2021 US Open winner impressed throughout her journey at SW19, but a clash against World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka proved to be a step too far. Raducanu was adamant that the ELC made numerous errors throughout her third round defeat, which ended 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. She is not the only player who believes this, as Jack Draper and Carlos Alcaraz have also criticised the new system. During an exchange with the chair umpire in the opening set of her contest against Sabalenka, Raducanu argued about a line call before ultimately falling to defeat. She felt that wasn’t the only inaccurate decision made against her over the course of the week. When asked about the system, she replied: “Yeah, I mean, that call [against Sabalenka] was, like, for sure out. It’s kind of disappointing, the tournament here, that the calls can be so wrong. “For the most part they’ve been okay. It’s just, like, I’ve had a few in my other matches, too, that have been very wrong. So yeah, I don’t know. Hopefully they can kind of fix that.” Draper also expressed his doubts about the accuracy of the system following his defeat to Marin Cilic. The British No. 1 said: “I don’t think it’s 100 per cent accurate, in all honesty. “A couple of the ones today, it showed a mark on the court. There’s no way the chalk would have showed.” During his third-round victory against Jan-Lennard Struff, defending champion Alcaraz also raised concerns to the umpire about some of the calls. When asked about it, he told reporters: “I’m not sure about it. “I would have asked for a challenge. It’s not the first time I’ve seen the machine… it’s not the first time. I’m not sure about some calls.” Wimbledon tournament director Jamie Baker responded to the growing scrutiny over the system on Friday. He stated: “The concept of live line calling is absolutely standard across the tour now. “Two of the other grand slams have had it for four or five years. The accuracy and the reliability and the robustness of the system and the process as a whole, in terms of officiating, is in as good a place as it has been for tennis.” Only two British players are still competing at Wimbledon. Sonay Kartal, who has already beaten Jelena Ostapenko, Viktoriya Tomova and Diane Parry, faces Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova next, while Cameron Norrie faces Nicolas Jarry of Chile in the round of 16.