By Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

MASON - Patrick McEnroe sat in the broadcast booth and chuckled.

This was Wednesday night, when Mardy Fish and Xavier Malisse were both contesting calls during their second-round match at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters. ESPN's ShotSpot, an innovation for TV that shows where a ball lands on the court, proved the players were wrong "about 80 percent of the time," McEnroe said.

It wasn't just Fish and Malisse.

"ShotSpot is showing that the players are wrong a lot, which kind of surprised me," McEnroe said.

ShotSpot, derived from missile-tracking technology and designed by Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. of London, uses four cameras positioned at different angles around the court. The cameras track the ball's flight, then the information from them is combined and added to a three-dimensional trajectory model. It is, according to ESPN, accurate to within 1 millimeter.

ShotSpot won an Emmy for Outstanding Innovative Technical Achievement.

The device was tested last year and first used extensively at the 2003 Australian Open. Dennis Deninger, ESPN's coordinating producer of tennis, said after that tournament that ShotSpot made the same call as the line judges 95 percent of the time.

Robby Ginepri, who beat Gaston Gaudio Thursday despite a call on match point that ShotSpot showed was incorrect, suggested chair umpires should have ShotSpot at their disposal and be able to use it like the NFL's instant replay.

"I've had some umpires say to me (afterward) about certain calls, 'What did ShotSpot say?' " McEnroe said. "It has definitely gotten some interest."

RACE FOR NO. 1: Though Andre Agassi will hang onto the No. 1 world ranking for at least another week, the lead in the 2003 ATP Champions Race could change hands based on what happens here.

Roger Federer leads the year-long points race, which culminates in the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup. Juan Carlos Ferrero stands second and Agassi third, but it's No. 4 Guillermo Coria or No. 5 Andy Roddick who could jump to No. 1 by virtue of winning this tournament.

"I'm trying not to think about being No. 1 in the race," Coria said. "I'm trying just to go one step at a time and not feel the pressure of being No. 1."

The world rankings are determined by a player's best results from the past 12 months. Agassi is No. 1, with Federer second and Ferrero third.

GOOD COMPANY: Rising American Ginepri has reached his third Tennis Masters Series quarterfinal of the year.

Ginepri previously reached the quarterfinals in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami.

Just five other players have made three or more TMS quarters this year: Rainer Schuettler, Federer, Coria, Roddick and David Nalbandian.

REMEMBER WHEN: Argentina's five players in the round of 16 were a record for that country. The last time Argentina brought this strong a contingent to Cincinnati, it met the United States in the 1981 Davis Cup finals at Riverfront Coliseum.

That remains Argentina's lone appearance in the Davis Cup finals, and Guillermo Vilas and Jose Luis-Clerc nearly willed their team to a championship.

Clerc beat Roscoe Tanner in singles as John McEnroe beat Vilas. Then, in the pivotal doubles match, McEnroe and Peter Fleming beat Vilas and Clerc 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 3-6, 11-9 in a marathon that lasted 4 hours, 34 minutes.

The match was marked by a heated exchange between McEnroe and the Argentines, and the two captains had to step between the players to avoid a fight.

With Vilas likely to beat Tanner in the reverse singles, it was critical that McEnroe win his match with Clerc. He did, in a 7-5, 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 classic. (The Vilas-Tanner match wasn't needed; the United States won 3-1.)

The crowds of 11,888 for the doubles and 13,327 for the McEnroe-Clerc match remain the largest ever to see tennis in Cincinnati.

"The crowds have been great," McEnroe said after the last match. "They turned out better than I thought and then they kept you going."

E-mail nschmidt@enquirer.com