Jessica Pegula Takes a Light-Hearted Dig at Jelena Ostapenko’s Hawk-Eye Cinematics – ‘She Always Thinks It’s Out’

Hawk-Eye is the center of all the attention in the tennis world at the moment! Just a few months ago, Daria Kasatkina was seen annoyed by a faulty electronic call during her third-round defeat at the hands of Romanian tennis star, Sorana Cîrstea at the 2024 Miami Open. After seeing this incident, fans poured their anger on this electronic system and advocated for human-line judges. Something which Latvian tennis star, Jelena Ostapenko has said time and again.

She has a bitter history with Hawk-Eye and Ostapenko is one of those players who strongly wants to see more lines of people being used on the WTA Tour instead of all these things. When some WTA stars were having a funny interactive session recently, they were given a task – to see a video clip and make a call, about whether the ball was in or out.

In that short interactive session, American tennis star, Jessica Pegula was heard lightly mocking Jelena Ostapenko’s line callings. She was shown a video clip of a match between Ostapenko and Coco Gauff from the 2023 AO. After seeing that clip, Pegula said, “I mean, I don’t know, in. Although it’s Ostapenko. She always thinks it’s out.” Then Pegula went on to laugh at her questioning a call.

Sports aren’t perfect and there are always going to be controversial decisions. These are things that make the sport uniquely entertaining in their own sense. Soccer introduced VAR, Cricket introduced DRS, and MLB also utilizes Hawk-Eye to cut down these controversial calls. Similarly, tennis’ Hawk-Eye system determines whether the ball is in or out. Matches can be won or lost depending on a few bad calls. And Jelena Ostapenko feels she has been on the receiving end for a number of times now.

Shortly after completing her match against Coco Gauff, Ostapenko was asked whether she had faith in every call, she said “In the system? To be honest, no!” Jelena Ostapenko defeated Coco Gauff by a 7-5,6-3 margin.

But she later went on to add, “Honestly, this live electronic system, I don’t know, Sometimes it feels like it makes some mistakes. Of course, we have to play. Sometimes I look at my team because I know I’m wrong, but I feel like some balls are pretty close, so I want to know what they think about the call.” Suppose Ostapenko is given a chance to change a few rules in tennis. What would those be?

“I would like to have the line umpires back” – Jessica Pegula’s long-time rival, Jelena Ostapenko has an interesting take on this burning issue

During an interview in the past, Jelena Ostapenko shared her thoughts on Hawk-Eye. What are her reactions when she sees her videos of arguing with the electronic system? She said “Ha-ha! I mean – yes, but honestly, as I already mentioned in the past, everybody trusts the Hawk-Eye system fully, but I think it makes mistakes.“

But what are those two rules in tennis that Jessica Pegula’s WTA rival would love to change? To this, Jelena Ostapenko replied, “Back to Hawk-Eye obviously, I would go back to tennis without Hawk-Eye live system. I would like to have the line umpires back because I feel like the court is empty without them. It creates a better atmosphere, more people – without them, it looks empty even at Slams.“

She strongly believes this will also create a few more job opportunities for the people who are involved in the tennis world. Share what are your takes on the Hawk-Eye system.