Video Replay Gaffe Sees U.S. Open Umpire Make Wrong Call

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Tennis Association acknowledged Sunday that the wrong call was made on an illegal shot during a third-round U.S. 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.