On its debut tournament, the Video Review technology was called into action for the first time at the US Open on Tuesday, and it massively underperformed.
Andy Murray's straight-sets victory over Corentin Moutet was his 200th match win in a Grand Slam, but it wasn't the only thing on record that will go in the history books. The match will fondly be remembered for its first invocation of the Video Review technology by French player Moutet.
If you have overlooked the news in recent weeks, the 2023 US Open is the first Grand Slam tournament to use the new technology to help chair umpires make conclusive decisions on disputed calls. At 5-3 in the third set, when Murray was serving for the match, he played a drop shot that Moutet was judged to have got to after a double bounce.
Despite challenging the the umpire's call, the system malfunctioned as the VR officials off-court could not relay the footage to the umpire's tablet and the original call stood. Moutet was clearly unhappy, and Murray had his say in the aftermath of that fiasco when he spoke to the media arguing that the ball did bounce twice but was confused as everybody about how the system was bound to work.
"Yeah, so obviously I don't know exactly how it's supposed to work and who's supposed to make the decision on it because it was quite clear from the second video that the ball had bounced twice. We watched it about 10 times. It clearly is not the umpire that's making that decision. I don't know how the technology works."
Murray alluded that it was at a critical moment in the match, fully aware of how one point in tennis can easily change the complexion of a set or even a match, and stated that the responsible experts should definitely try to get it sorted to avoid a recurrence in future matches.
"But, yeah, it obviously didn't go to plan in a pretty important moment of the match. So, yeah, it would be good if they could get that fixed."
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