Malaysia’s Goh Liu Ying and Chan Peng Soon were victims of a wrong line call in their quarter final loss yesterday at the Yonex Swiss Open 2021.
Goh and Chan had taken the first game 21-14 against their Danish opponents Alexandra Boje and Mathias Christiansen.
At 10-14 down in the second game, Chan Peng Soon hit a straight smash which was clearly inside the lines. The shuttle was not even close to the line.
Christiansen asked for the court floor to be mopped and both the pairs got a short towel down break while the floor was being mopped.
When the two pairs came back to the court, to the surprise of Goh and Chan, the umpire called the score “15-10”.
The Malaysian pair desperately tried to explain to the umpire that it was clearly in. But the umpire told off the Malaysians by saying that the sideline judge called it out.
It is surprising to notice that there were only four line judges allotted to the court (Court no.3 ) on which they played.
Chan and Goh lost the crucial second game by a fine margin of 19-21. They eventually lost the match to the much younger and fitter opponents 21-14 19-21 15-21.
While wrong line calls happen almost all the time, there was a technical mistake from the umpire in the situation. The umpire did not call out the score after the point was scored. And he only called out the score “15-10” after the towel down break. According to the technical regulations of the BWF, an umpire must clearly call out a score immediately after a point is scored.
The umpire also has the authority to overrule the judgement of a line call if a clear error has been made, which it was in this case. No overrule was, however, made.
Goh expressed her disappointment over the umpire’s decision through her Instagram account.
“The umpire said sideline (judge) called out! And he saw the shuttle OUT with no correction made. Hopefully the umpire can make a right decision next time, thank you,” Goh wrote.
