“Oh my God, we have robots everywhere and we don’t have them for the net?” Erin Routliffe‘s criticism of the lack of a ‘let’ machine at the Australian Open, earlier this week, has sparked a debate among experts. And it seems former WTA pro and American icon Lindsay Davenport might have an answer to why the Melbourne Major is having chair umpires calling ‘lets’. The shocking, yet bizarre, reason may leave you stunned and scratching your head!
In an episode of the Tennis Channel Live podcast, dated January 22, Davenport explained why matches are not featuring automatic ‘let’ machines down under. Before spilling the beans on the matter, she recalled her time during the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying round last April. That time, she was the Captain of Team USA. “First captain’s meeting, we go in and the ITF says, ‘Okay, and by the way, the chair Empire is calling the ‘lets’.’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’”, told the ex-pro while revealing “they proceeded to tell me the company that made the machine to call ‘lets’ had gone bankrupt.” Simply put “They didn’t have any.”
Continuing further, she added, “I went back to the players and my team. And I said, ‘Guys, I don’t know how this is going to go. It seems crazy to me. The chair umpire is going to call lets’.” According to her, “This was back in April. Guess what? We’re nine months later. They haven’t found a solution. This has been going on for a long time. This is not just the Australian Open. This has been on tour,” she concluded.
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For the unversed, during the third round of women’s doubles, Routliffe and her partner Gaby Dabrowski were facing Beatriz Haddad Maia and Laura Siegemund. In a tense encounter, during the ultimate tie-break, Maia delivered a serve that Routliffe didn’t return. She assumed it was a ‘let’. In tennis, a let occurs when the ball hits the net and lands into the correct service box. It requires the serving player to serve again.
Routliffe assumed that Siegemund’s serve was a ‘let’ but chair umpire didn’t think so. At a crucial stage of the match, the Kiwi player became furious to see there was no actual machine to call ‘lets’ at a Slam. But she and her partner eventually won the third round battle and cruised ahead. Ultimately, Routliffe wasn’t the only one expressing disappointment over the removal of ‘let’ machines. A similar incident occurred yesterday in the QF match between Alexander Zverev and Tommy Paul.
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Removal of ‘let’ machines leaves Tommy Paul stunned in the Australian Open QF round
On Tuesday, Alexander Zverev beat Tommy Paul in the quarterfinal of the Australian Open and entered the semis. In the last five years in Melbourne, it’s the third time he’s made it into the last four. He won with a score line of 7-6(1), 7-6(0), 2-6, 6-1 after a grueling battle against the American. But before the end result, a lot of drama unfolded at the Rod Laver Arena.
During the opening set, Paul was shocked when the chair umpire missed out on a ‘let’ call. Zverev had served a ball that, according to Paul, touched the net before landing in the correct service box. Paul wasn’t happy as it saw his opponent getting a crucial point. The American blatantly questioned the chair umpire on how they could have missed the ball’s contact with the net. “If you don’t hear that one or see that one you are not going to see any,” he said as reported by Nine.com on Tuesday. In a post-match conference, he was left speechless after knowing that there was no automatic ‘let’ machine in use in the Melbourne Major.
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Even Zverev later expressed his honest thoughts on this debatable decision. Although he received a point during the initial stage of the match, the German confessed, “To be honest, the point that Tommy complained about, it was an incredibly clear ‘let’,” as reported by Nine.com. Adding further, he said, “I didn’t know what to do in that situation… because if there’s no call and I stop playing then it’s a loss of point for me. In that situation, there’s nothing much you can do but continue playing.”
He also found it hard to understand that there are all kinds of advanced technologies in use these days. But “a simple ‘let’ machine that we’ve been using for the past 25 years is not available at a grand slam.” What are your thoughts on the absence of automatic ‘let’ machines from the Australian Open? Let us know in the comments below.
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Is it acceptable for the Australian Open to rely on human error over technology for 'let' calls?
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Is it acceptable for the Australian Open to rely on human error over technology for 'let' calls?
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