Line Calls

French Open, Part 2

Peter Aaron, our Line Calls columnist, calls 'em like he sees 'em. If you don't like the call--or if you do--send in your email responses and we'll post them. Peter's opinions are his and don't represent those of TennisONE.

Past Line Calls Columns

Tennis Dissed Again

Can you imagine NBC beginning their coverage of a World Series game in the 4th inning? Can you imagine NBC starting coverage of an NFL playoff game in the second quarter? Inconceivable, right? Baseball and football fans would tear the network apart. So where does NBC get off starting coverage of the French Women's Final in the second set? And where's the outrage by tennis fans?

If you missed it entirely, the match between Sanchez Vicario and Graf was terrific, probably one of the top five women's matches in the last 20 years. Of course everyone missed the first set of this classic because NBC, in a taped, delayed broadcast, began coverage after Graf had won the first set and the game score in the second set was 1-1. NBC had only allocated a few hours for this women's Grand Slam final and because they knew the second and third sets went to tie-breakers, they just decided to omit the entire first set and two games of the second. Not only is this like missing the first four innings of a World Series game, but it totally ruined the drama of a great second set. If you thought about it for more than a half a second, you knew that if NBC was starting coverage a third of the way into the second set, it must mean the match had gone to three sets. And if the match had gone to three sets, then obviously Sanchez Vicario had to win the second. So even when Graf went up 4-1 in the second set tiebreaker, you knew Sanchez Vicario was going to win it.

Yes, the third set was terrific and all hail to Steffi Graf for a magnificent clutch victory. But when are tennis fans going to start demanding the quality of television coverage of their sport? How many times have you missed the first point of an important game because the network hasn't returned from its commercial break? How many times have you missed an important live point while the broadcasters show a replay of an old one? Would football or baseball fans stand for this? Write the networks (or me and I'll forward it). Don't let it stand for tennis either.

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