Novak Djokovic and Wimbledon stars make feelings clear after brutal Emma Raducanu put-down

Novak Djokovic has shared his thoughts on the controversial introduction of the Electronic Line Calling system (ELC) at Wimbledon. The ELC has replaced traditional line judges at the All England Club and has been heavily criticised by players including British No.1s Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper - much to Tim Henman's frustration.

Wimbledon officials were forced to apologise after the ELC malfunctioned during Sonay Kartal's fourth-round match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Sunday. A clear error by the system led to a delay and the decision to replay a point, with the mistake later attributed to human error.

Despite the incident, seven-time Wimbledon champion Djokovic remains supportive of the technology, which debuted in Grand Slam tennis at the 2021 Australian Open. However, it has proven a divisive topic among other Wimbledon stars.

"Since we made the introduction of this technology for the line calling, I guess you have to heavily rely on the technology," Djokovic said. "I think that technology's probably more accurate and making less mistakes than a lines person. But where you're going to have a system failure and then it happens in an awkward time of the match, like yesterday, that's not good.

"I didn't feel in my matches so far I had some really bad calls from the system, to be honest. I don't have any complaints in that regard."

READ MORE: Andy Murray told he's wrong as British tennis star speaks out on Wimbledon controversy

READ MORE: Aryna Sabalenka caught in sexism storm as Wimbledon icon slams article on world No.1

However, not every player agrees with Djokovic's view. Raducanu voiced her doubts about the ELC system following a tough third-round loss to Aryna Sabalenka.

"It's kind of disappointing, the tournament here, that the calls can be so wrong, but for the most part they've been okay," Raducanu said. "It's just like, I've had a few in my other matches, too, that have been very wrong. So yeah, I don't know.

"Hopefully, they can fix that."

Fellow top Brit seed Draper echoed Raducanu's doubts about the technology: "I don't think it's 100 per cent accurate."

BBC commentator and former tennis star Henman, who also serves on the All England Club committee, had little patience for such complaints.

"The narrative around players questioning the accuracy of the calling is just utter garbage," he declared. "And then when you go back, as I've done, and look at them in slow motion. They are on the outside edge of the line, they hit the line. You can sometimes see even that little puff of white chalk, whatever it is. Is the technology accurate? Absolutely, 100 per cent.

"You've got to take into account when you are the player, you're seeing the ball and you're hoping, 'Oh, I hope that's going to go out.' We have the technology, let's use it because the ball is traveling around 140 miles an hour and it's really difficult to call the lines.

"It's garbage that the players say it is garbage."

Despite Henman's strong defence, his BBC colleague John McEnroe remains sceptical about the ELC's precision.

McEnroe quipped on BBC One: "I'm the perfect guy to ask. My hair is pretty white at this stage and I haven't got much left. I might have a little more if it wasn't for all of those line judges blowing those calls.

"The thing is, it needs to be right. I think they have said it's plus or minus 3mm, but is that for sure? Who's done the testing?"

Former US Open champion Marin Cilic and Olympic gold medallist Belinda Bencic have similarly expressed doubts about the technology's reliability. Nevertheless, Djokovic's latest opponent Alex de Minaur raised no objections to the ELC system after his Wimbledon defeat.

British doubles star Joe Salisbury provided a different viewpoint, suggesting that eliminating line judges has altered the atmosphere of the sport. "It takes away the trust when you see some of the things that have happened. It's supposed to be way more accurate than the human eye," Salisbury told the i.

"I don't know if it's 100 per cent accurate but you've got to trust it. I haven't had any shots where I thought that's clearly wrong. I quite like having the line judges and the challenges. The crowd quite like it instead of everything being electronic."

In response to the system's contentious deactivation during Kartal's match, the All England Club issued a statement to BBC Sport: "Following our review, we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking. While the source of the issue was human error, this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made."