No line judges causes Wimbledon qualifying suspension after heatwave breaks Hawk-Eye

Wimbledon qualifying was suspended after the automated line-calling system suffered a heat-related meltdown, with the All England Club unable to call on line judges.

Players left the courts at the Roehampton event soon after noon, after officials made the decision that chair umpires could not be entrusted with line-calls. There are no reserve line crews available for qualifying, in case of malfunctions, unlike at next week’s main-draw Championships at the All England Club proper.

With temperatures hitting 35 degrees Celsius in Roehampton, a power outage resulted in the line-calling technology failing and players taken off court.

A spokesperson for the All England Club said: “There was a temporary loss of power to part of our Qualifying venue, which meant that the electronic line calling system could not function. Power has now been restored and play has resumed.”

Roehampton was already under an extreme heat weather warning and it is believed the heat played a factor in the power failure, although the All England Club will still carry out a full investigation to determine what caused the issue. At the time of the outage, the priority was given to the welfare of players and guests as temperatures soared.

“We are wondering whether it is the heat that is wreaking havoc with the electronic line-calling system, which has gone down all around the grounds,” said Annabel Croft on the BBC’s live coverage of qualifying.

The suspension came with 16 second-round singles matches in progress – the second-string venue, a couple of miles from Centre Court, where Wimbledon is forced to host its qualifying event.

Five of those 16 matches at Roehampton involved British hopefuls. Dan Evans – the long-serving Davis Cup campaigner and former world No 21 who announced his imminent retirement earlier this month – was a set down to Australia’s Tristan Schoolkate at the time of the interruption. Former British No 1 Evans didn’t win another game after the interruption, and later admitted that the interruption had been disruptive.

“I was playing really well when I went off, and he wasn’t playing… well, he was playing alright, but not as good as I knew he could play,” said Evans. “And he was too good when we came back. I think he went 10 from 10 first serves.

“It took the sting out of the match a bit. I was really in the match. But all credit to him, he played well. Yes, just a bit disappointing, but that’s life, isn’t it? I went in the ice bath very quickly [during the break], and then had a shower, got changed. It hasn’t happened to me before but it’s just so hot, isn’t it? I guess something happened, but yes, a first in my career.”

Evans had also contended with a blinky Hawk-Eye Live system in his first-round qualifying match against Juan Carlos Prado Angelo on Monday, but in that instance, chair umpire Damien Dumusois was still getting the data on his tablet screen, and was able to make any necessary calls until the system rebooted.

This latest interruption was much more wide-ranging, with play being interrupted soon after noon. The players did not return for around 90 minutes.

Wimbledon brought in Hawk-Eye Live to replace human line judges last summer, but there were teething problems from the start. An operator accidentally turned Centre Court’s line-calling off for more than six minutes during a fourth-round match, while British players Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu were among those who publicly questioned the accuracy of decision-making.

Plans are afoot to move this tournament into the former Wimbledon Park Golf Course site which adjoins the main Wimbledon site, but they have been mired in legal disputes with neighbouring protest groups for the last four years, and it will take the best part of a decade for any new grass courts to bed down in any case.

Evans, whose final outing as a tennis professional will come in the men’s doubles event at Wimbledon, was once again scathing about the Lawn Tennis Association officials who failed to support his case for wild cards in his final summer.

“Not one member of the LTA came to watch one of my matches,” said Evans. “Actually, [national coach] Colin Beecher did because he’s my friend. It’s not that deep, chaps or ladies. So that’s how you want to act, carry on, it’s pathetic.

“I won’t be campaigning for my player” – the former Wimbledon boys champion Henry Searle, whom Evans is coaching – “to be playing Davis Cup, because it didn’t get me very far, did it? I’m a little too far up the M40 [for the LTA’s liking]. I spoke about working-class people in tennis, and that didn’t go down well. They like to keep things under wraps, and, you know, play to their tune.”

Asked what he would miss about the sport, the Solihull-based Evans replied: “This is probably the wrong analogy, but it’s probably the best drug in the world, winning and losing, if that makes sense. You feel so good and then you have match points and lose, and you feel so bad, you think the world’s over. One week, you can be awful and, like, lose seven in a row. You can then win Washington [the ATP 500 event that Evans claimed in 2023]. It gives you a chance every week, which is like no other job, I think, or sport.”