Another controversy regarding the use of hawk-eye on clay emerged at the 2023 Madrid Open and Holger Rune was a part of it.
The young Dane is battling it out with home player, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, in the last match of Sunday's program at La Caja Magica. The match is a really good one for the Spanish crowd as they have their player battling for the spot in the fourth round.
But the beginning of the match has been overshadowed by a controversy related to a hawk eye used on the clay courts at the ATP 1000 event in Madrid. The discussion about how to judge marks in tennis in general, but especially on this surface, has been very loud recently, and it got even louder after ATP announced that live electronic line calling will be used at all events from 2025.
The announcement came shortly after the world no. 1 Novak Djokovic was robbed a point at the 2023 Monte-Carlo Masters, an event which doesn't use hawk eye or live electronic line calling but relies only on humans.
After the event, the tournament director expressed his satisfaction with human linesmen, despite the incident that occurred. Now, at the 2023 Madrid Open, we saw an example of a moment when also machine could fail and it happened in the match between Rune and Davidovich Fokina.
In the seventh game of the first set, the young Dane was leading 40-0 and he missed the first serve. After his second serve, Davidovich Fokina missed the return and it appeared that Rune will win the game.
But the Spaniard saw that the ball was out and asked for a hawk eye. However, despite his clear belief that the ball was out, the hawkeye showed that it was in and so Davidovich Fokina lost the game, but immediately requested a supervisor as he wasn't happy with the call.
When the supervisor came, he discussed the incident and stated: "That's the thing, we have to go with the machine, but I will check again with them." Yet, still unhappy Davidovich Fokina wasn't satisfied with the response, as he replied: "But then don't do it on clay because it's not working."
However, what irked the crowd wasn't the talk between the supervisor and Davidovich Fokina, but what happened in the meantime. Rune didn't want to discuss the precision of the hawk eye and wait around as he stood up and went to his side of the court, ready to play.
As he did that, the young Dane approached the ball mark in discussion, and according to some he erased it, but that can't be confirmed from the footage available. That made the Madrid crowd go wild and since that moment, they booed Rune every time they got a chance, even between his first and second serve.
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