LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The PowerShares Series, a 12-city tennis tour for champions over age 30, shook up the game by replacing linesman with Hawk-Eye line-calling technology this year. On Wednesday night, fans at the Galen Center on the campus of USC in Los Angeles watched Jim Courier, Mark Philippoussis, Andy Roddick and James Blake take the court at the PowerShares Series’ SoCal Honda Dealers Helpful Cup.

The event format features two semifinals consisting of one set, with the winners facing off in a one-set final. Each player entered the arena accompanied by kids from ACEing Autism, a tennis program for children with autism spectrum disorders. The announcer told that crowd that although there was a chair umpire, there would be no linesman for the matches. Players called their own lines and had unlimited challenges using Hawk-Eye electronic replays. The crowd was sometimes shown a replay on close points even when neither player challenged the call.

The first semifinal pitted Jim Courier against Mark Philippoussis. Courier challenged two out calls in the second game of the set but was wrong on both. In the 12th game of the set, Philippoussis broke Courier to win 7-5. After the match, a few people from the crowd came on court to compete for a prize, including a USC tennis player who happened to be the nephew of 1990 French Open champ Andrés Gómez.

Before the start of the second semifinal, Andy Roddick called across the net to James Blake: “I feel like I can’t lose calling our own lines because you’re generally more honest than me.” Roddick then successfully challenged an out call by Blake on the first point of the match. “First point he cheated!,” Roddick later told the crowd. “I’m not mad at him, just disappointed.”

Roddick is in his element in the more relaxed atmosphere of the PowerShares Series, which allows him to have a running conversation with the crowd, his opponent, and himself. He also seemed to enjoy the control of calling his own lines. “I’ll make the calls here,” he declared after the chair umpire called a let and first serve for Blake. Andy relied on his booming serve and powerful groundstrokes to win 6-2.

After just a few minutes, Roddick and Philippoussis started the final set of the night to determine the winner. The Australian double faulted in the third game to give the American a break point, which he converted. Roddick stayed on track to win 6-4 and be crowned the evening’s champion.

In his on court interview following the match, Roddick said, “People will say I maybe retired early but I never had that time where I didn't enjoy playing. I still enjoy it. I never get tired of it. I still enjoy hitting balls when I am home. It's even more fun when I can come out here and play in front of people.”

Later he spoke to Tennis View about the novelty of replacing linesmen with electronic line-calling. “It’s fun,” he said. “It’s something different and allows us to have a little fun with each other, too, and give each other a little grief. I thought it was cool.” Nonetheless, Roddick doesn’t envision this innovation reaching the pro tour. “When there’s four of us playing out here you only have to convince three to make it go through,” he explained. “When you have a draw of 128 at the slams, to get the majority it might be a long process. I don’t see it happening.”