In the end, it was a rather steamy encounter between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal with constant momentum shifts. The match involved a rather shocking incident that caught the eyes of the tennis world. In the Wimbledon round of 16 encounter between the two, a major technological failure gifted a game to the local star Kartal. Although she hit the ball long, the call wasn’t made due to a glitch. This raised many eyebrows, with Kartal giving her first reaction to this controversy.
During the post-match press conference, Kartal was asked to comment on the line-call controversy that went against her opponent. She revealed, “That situation is a rarity. I don’t think it’s really ever happened, if it has. What can you do? The umpire’s trying his best in that situation. I think he handled it fine. I think the system just malfunctioned a little bit and I think the fairest way was what he did, to replay the point. I think obviously it was just a bit unlucky that happened. But I think it’s… there’s hardly been any of them.”
Subsequently, the interviewer asked her if she felt that her backhand was out. Replying to this, Kartal added, “It’s unfortunate for me. I’m quite short. So where the net tape is, a lot of the time I lose my vision so I can’t look over the baseline. But from where I was, I couldn’t see. From my point, I felt like I hit the backhand clean. Maybe I have to look at the replay. My vision was kind of blinded. When the point stopped, I didn’t really know what was… I thought maybe it was a let or something came on the court. I couldn’t see.”
Sonay Kartal on the missed line call due to ELC malfunction in her match against Pavlyuchenkova at Wimbledon, ‘I think the fairest way was what he did, to replay the point’
Sonay: “That situation is a rarity. I don’t think it’s really ever happened, if it has. What can you do?… pic.twitter.com/zRelqRPCx1
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) July 6, 2025
However, the interviewer went on to question Kartal if she should’ve surrendered the game if she felt that her return was long. “If I could typically see, like, it was massively out, then you can’t argue with that. But if it’s tight, there’s not much I can do in that situation,” Kartal said, as she felt that it wasn’t a clear-cut call.
This is a developing story…
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