US Open 2024: A wrong replay leads chair umpire to get a call wrong on video review

The US Tennis Association acknowledged Sunday that the wrong call was made on an illegal shot during a third-round US Open match between Anna Kalinskaya and Beatriz Haddad Maia a night earlier because the chair umpire was not shown the relevant replay by the video review official.

“After the review was complete, an additional angle was seen on the broadcast,” USTA spokesman Brendan McIntyre said. “The chair did not see this footage prior to making the call.”

McIntyre said the tournament referee’s office “has reinforced” to the people who send replays to officials during a match that all “applicable” angles should be passed along.

The point in question happened 11 minutes into the match Saturday night at Louis Armstrong Stadium, with the 15th-seeded Kalinskaya leading 2-0, and the 22nd-seeded Haddad Maia serving at deuce.

Kalinskaya, a Russian, hit a drop shot that Haddad Maia, a Brazilian, ran forward to try to reach. She hit the ball just at about the same time as it was landing on the court; the ball went over the net, and Kalinskaya, seemingly distracted because she thought there was something wrong with Haddad Maia’s reply, awkwardly swung her racket and whiffed.

The point was awarded to Haddad Maia. Kalinskaya challenged under a video review system added to some courts at the U.S. Open last year for just this sort of dispute — not in-or-out line calls, but other things such as whether there was an extra bounce, if a player was hindered or, as was the case in this instance, whether a ball went off someone’s racket and landed first on that player’s side of the court before going over the net. That’s known as a foul shot.

McIntyre said this was the fifth use of video review of this year’s U.S. Open. Most players think all tournaments should use that kind of technology to aid chair umpires in making calls.

The match was delayed for four minutes while chair umpire Miriam Bley watched a replay — also displayed on the Armstrong scoreboards that spectators see — of Haddad Maia making contact with the ball.

The problem, McIntyre explained, was that angle only allowed Bley to determine if there was a double-bounce before Haddad Maia made contact — there wasn’t — but not whether the ball came off her racket and hit on her side of the court before flying over the net.

After Bley told the players that Haddad Maia would keep that point, Kalinskaya walked away shaking her head.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as we have just seen on the video review, to me, it would appear that the call was correct, and that the ball touched the racket before it touched the ground a second time,” Bley told the crowd, drawing some boos. “Therefore, the original call stands.”

Haddad Maia took the next point, too, and the game, and there were more boos as the two went to the sideline for the changeover.

Haddad Maia ended up winning the match 6-3, 6-1.