Hunt for Wimbledon official who turned off AI: Chief REFUSES to reveal identity of operator who switched off new technology in farcical scenes

The All England club are yet to discover exactly how Wimbledon’s new AI technology was switched off during a British star’s defeat on Sunday, with the chief executive admitting that an official had not been ‘doing their job properly’.

The women’s round of 16 clash between Britain’s Sonay Kartal and Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova descended into chaos when a shot from the hometown favourite that was clearly out was not called as such by the technology – which had been brought in to replace the iconic line judges for the first time this year.

A statement from the All England club on Sunday revealed that the technology had been switched off in error during one game and that three calls were missed as a result.

Fronting the media on Monday, All England chief executive Sally Bolton insisted there was no requirement to provide a public explanation and promised no review of how the ‘electronic line calling’ technology was working, despite insisting that the situation would not be repeated.

Helwerth was assigned no matches at Wimbledon on Monday, despite having been on the roster of match officials every other day at Wimbledon this year. The All England club insisted that he had not been demoted, like a Premier League football referee, and was on a normal day off.

The circumstances behind a deactivation of the electronic system for an entire game of Kartal’s match against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova dominated a fiery ten-minute press conference given by Bolton today.

HawkEye line judge malfunctioned on Sunday as this ball from Sonay Kartal was not called out

All England chief executive Sally Bolton claims she doesn’t know how the system was ‘deactivated’

Bolton has blamed German umpire Nico Helwerth for the error which led to a replayed point

She was repeatedly asked how the system could have unintentionally been switched off – resulting in a vital point not being correctly called in the Russian’s favour – but insisted that she did not know whether someone might have accidentally pressed a button, or brushed past a control.

When it was put to her that public disclosure of this detail was vital to the credibility of the system, Bolton said: ‘Well, clearly that’s a pertinent question for us in terms of ensuring it doesn’t happen again – yes. I’m not sure it matters greatly exactly how it happened. It’s important for us to understand that, in terms of making sure that our processes are robust and that this doesn’t happen again.’

The system was only supposed to be switched off between matches, Bolton declared. 

‘There is a process in place for activating and deactivating the system, and the humans are the people that need to do the activating and deactivating,’ she said.

Bolton insisted that the new line calling system empowered Helwerth to make that call. She said she suspected the German had not seen the ball drop a foot out of play – contradicting evidence from Pavlyuchenkova who said on Sunday night that Helwerth told her he knew it had landed out.

Wimbledon is also laying blame at the door of the match’s review official, working with a Hawk Eye official in Wimbledon’s equivalent of the Premier League’s VAR Stockley Park, who would have sight of the situation and could have informed Helwerth.

Bolton said: ‘It requires a human element to ensure that the system is functional, so it is not AI.

‘The camera tracking technology works in tandem with some humans, so the Hawkeye operator and the review official and all those things have to function effectively for it to work.

‘The job of the Hawkeye official and the review official, is to make sure that the system is activated at the beginning of a match and is set up properly, and then to support the chair umpire. And that was not happening.

‘The chair umpire was in communication with the review official and he was not being informed that the system had been partially deactivated. The chair umpire was not operating with perhaps the full set of information.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova made her feelings known about the decision to Helwerth

Helworth has not been given any matches to officiate on Monday but the All England club claims he just has a day off

‘If the [review official] had been doing their job effectively, then the chair umpire would have had the relevant information with which to make the decision.’

Bolton would not disclose whether the review official had been relieved of his, or her, duties, though implied that some kind of change had been made a result of the mistake, during the last-16 game which the Russian player won.

The All England club are also yet to explain why the umpire made two of his own calls when the electronic camera system failed to work during the game in question, yet only ordered the game to a halt after the malfunction became clear on a third point.

Bolton said: ‘You wouldn’t expect me to go into the details of an individual but suffice to say we’ve made sure we’ve made amendments to our processes to ensure that we won’t have the same situation again.’