Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993                   TAG: 9308290048
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: E12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

IT'S A FINE LINE DETECTED BY ELECTRONIC EYE

Long noted for his penchant for petulance when it comes to line judges, McEnroe would be at an unaccustomed loss for words when this year's U.S. Open begins its two-week run Monday. All of the line calls on the four show courts will be made by machine.

"Frankly the human eye is not capable of accurately monitoring the ball" because it is moving too fast, U.S. Open tournament director Stephen DeVoe said when explaining why this year's final Grand Slam event is going high-tech.

While all of the lines will be "called" by wires embedded in the court, it won't be obvious to spectators and players. There will be the normal coterie of line judges stationed around the court.

At Wimbledon in June, the U.S. Tennis Association told the players the four show courts - Stadium, Grandstand and Nos. 16 and 17 - at this year's U.S. Open would use the new TEL electronic line-calling system. There would be a chair umpire, a net cord judge and two foot fault judges.

Whoa, said the players.

"We learned very quickly from the men and women players we apparently did not adequately take into consideration their thoughts and the intangible of a player walking on to court at a tournament such as the U.S. Open and finding something that looked, felt, smelled brand new to them," DeVoe said.

Ergo, the full crew of line judges has been restored to those courts, but with a huge difference. They won't actually call the lines.

"If the electronic system calls the ball by making the loud beep that players and fans and everybody can hear, then the line umpire will merely make the physical sign of extending the hand so that you know whether it was long or wide and the player can look over and know that the call has been made," DeVoe said.

The system works by placing five wires under every line and attaching the wires to a computer. The magnetic field that is created has a very sharply defined edge, according to DeVoe, a former electrical engineer, and can tell where the ball, which has a small amount of iron material molded into the core, lands.

The chair umpire will have an instrument about the size of a television remote control that will show him the results of the computer.

At last year's tournament, 45 matches were monitored in a blind test with about 2,900 calls that were close enough to the lines to measure on the Tennis Electronic Lines system, DeVoe said.

"As we anticipated, the machine basically confirmed that we got some pretty darn good umpires out there," DeVoe said. "But it also showed that on about 10 percent of those 2,900 calls, the machine would have given you a different call.

"We know the majority of those were on the service line where the ball is simply moving too fast. . . . What has happened is that we have exceeded the capability of the human eye. That is really what this system is all about."

Keywords:
TENNIS