In her words
That’s why we have a chair umpire. Otherwise, I think soon let’s just play without them and then we’re going to have everything automatic.
I think we are losing a little bit of the charm of actually having human beings, ballboys.
Biography
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (born 1991 in Samara, Russia) is a professional tennis player who reached the 2021 French Open singles final and has won a mixed-doubles Grand Slam title. A former junior world No. 1, she has spent nearly two decades on the WTA Tour.
When the machine went quiet
At Wimbledon 2025 — the first year the 147-year-old tournament replaced its human line judges with an electronic line-calling system marketed as AI-assisted — Pavlyuchenkova was directly harmed by the technology. During her fourth-round match against Sonay Kartal, the system was accidentally deactivated and failed to call a ball that television replays showed was clearly out; the point was replayed and she lost the game. “They stole the game from me,” she told the umpire.
Rather than dwell only on the error, Pavlyuchenkova used the moment to question the wholesale removal of human officials, arguing that the chair umpire existed precisely for such failures and that the sport risked automating away its human texture. She went on to win the match but said the subject was worth raising “for the future.”
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/anastasia-pavlyuchenkova