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Cameron Norrie said it felt “amazing” to battle through to the Wimbledon quarter-finals as he became the last Briton standing in the championships.
The 29-year-old defeated his Chilean opponent Nicolás Jarry in five sets and became the only British player to reach the second week of the tournament despite a promising start.
Hopes of having two Britons in the quarter-finals for the first time in eight years were dashed after Sonay Kartal, 23, was overpowered by the 34-year-old Russian veteran Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Their two-hour clash was overshadowed by an electronic line-calling failure which prompted Pavlyuchenkova to allege home bias and that the game had been “stolen” from her.
Norrie, the British No 3, fell to the floor after his four-and-a-half hour 6-3 7-6 7-6 6-7 6-3 epic in front of a roaring No 1 Court crowd. Spectators booed Jarry when the South American confronted Norrie as the pair were shaking hands at the net.
Jarry, the 29-year-old world No 143, had earlier complained to the umpire after appearing frustrated with how long Norrie was taking to serve. “It is not a nervous tic, it is something he can control,” Jarry said. He later denied there had been a spat, saying all he had told Norrie at the net was the Briton had deserved to win.
In an on-court interview after the match, Norrie said of the five-set epic: “I just had to keep fighting.”
Norrie, a former top 10 player who was knocked out of the Wimbledon semi-finals in 2022 by Novak Djokovic, added: “I think at the beginning of this year I was struggling a little bit with confidence and had some doubts and just wanted to enjoy my tennis a little bit more. I’m doing that and I enjoyed it today, so it was a bonus today but I was more happy I was enjoying it and I was playing point for point, that’s what mattered.”
Fellow Briton Kartal, ranked 298 this time last year, said she was “devastated” after her fairytale run ended with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 defeat on her Centre Court debut.
“Probably for the rest of the day I’ll be a bit sad,” the 5ft 4in Brighton native told reporters. “But I think tomorrow I’ll probably wake up, and I can look back on this week and be super proud of it and step back and think, you know, fourth round of a slam, it’s the first experience, and for it being here, having beaten the players that I did to do that.”
Kartal, the British No 3, said she had “goosebumps” entering and exiting Centre Court to thunder and lightning.
Her match was as dramatic as the weather after Pavlyuchenkova, on game point serving at 4-4, became convinced that a Kartal shot had landed long but the AI technology was not working at the time. The umpire Nico Helwerth said the system was “unable to track the last point”, which had to be replayed.
“I don’t know if it’s in or it’s out. How do I know? You cannot prove it, because she’s local they can say whatever. You took the game away from me,” Pavlyuchenkova said, shaking her head. “They have stolen the game from me, they stole it.”
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A spokesperson for the All England Club said it had apologised to the players, adding: “It is now clear that the live electronic live calling (ELC) system, which was working optimally, was deactivated in error on part of the server’s side of the court for one game by those operating the system.
“In that time there were three calls not picked up by live ELC on the affected part of the court … We continue to have full confidence in the accuracy of the ball tracking technology. The live ELC system relies on the Hawk-Eye operators, the review official and the technology to work in harmony. This did not happen.
“In this instance there was a human error and as a consequence we have fully reviewed our processes and made the appropriate changes.”
Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper, the British No 1s, have both complained about the new technology and questioned some its calls.
Speaking after her win, Pavlyuchenkova said she believed the umpire should have called the ball out rather than making them replay the point.
“He was probably scared to take such a big decision. I think they should … That’s why we have a chair umpire,” she told reporters.
“Otherwise, I think soon let’s just play without them, right, and then we’re going to have everything automatic. I think we losing a little bit of the charm of actually having human beings … It just becomes a little bit weird and, like, robot sort of orientated.”
