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TNT: tennis coverage galore

By Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net

The next best thing to being at Wimbledon is watching the extensive Wimbledon coverage on TNT.

How do I know?

That’s simple – for the first time since 1990 I am monitoring Wimbledon from this side of the “pond” instead of jetting to London, putting on my tennis reporters cap and cover the tournament up-close and in person. After 11 consecutive Wimbledon trips, it was time to take a year off before heading back to England for the 2002 Championships.

This is the second year that TNT has broadcast Wimbledon, taking over where HBO sports left off after giving up the contract they had for many years. The move to TNT has been a great one for tennis fans across America – TNT is a cable channel available to a large majority of households, while HBO is a pay-for-TV channel and has a far more limited audience. TNT is also offering a much more expansive coverage than HBO ever did – on the opening two days alone, TNT broadcast for 12 hours straight besides for a late night wrap-up program.

The other advantage to TNT is they have assembled an excellent cast of characters as analysts – people who truly understand the game and know how to analyze the action. There’s Jim Courier, Mary Carillo, Martina Navratilova, Zina Garrison, Barry McKay and Marv Albert. And TNT is mature enough to know that there shouldn’t be a written law that women commentators only cover women’s matches, while men commentators only cover men’s matches. They mix up their team which is extremely refreshing and something other networks should take a lesson from by seeing how great it works.

Carillo is one of the best on TV and since she left ESPN a number of years ago, we don’t get the benefit of her analysis all that often. She has the feel – she knows when to talk, when not to talk, normally has something relevant to say and often adds some humor to the proceedings with her quick-wit. She also knows how to ask good questions of her co-commentators during matches which makes things far more interesting. For instance, when Hingis was in the throes of a first round defeat to Virginia Ruano Pascual, Carillo prodded Navratilova on what Hingis would have to do to improve her game to win a Grand Slam title again and how accurate the women’s rankings are with Hingis still being at the top of the charts.

While Courier on occasion talks a bit too much, he does have a lot to say and it’s almost always worth listening to. Always forthright as a player, Courier has translated that trait to his commentating duties – he’ll tell you just what he thinks about a player, their game and anything else that fits in. The bad news is that Courier prefers his rock band duties to his TV commentating duties so he isn’t likely to take on more than the Wimbledon position with TNT and maybe an odd commentating job here and there.

Navratilova has come into her own as a TV analysis and has learned when to comment and when to let the action do the talking. She seems to remain a close student of the game and has a breadth of knowledge about the players in both the men and women’s arena.

Garrison is quite comfortable with the analysis angle of the job, but she isn’t as comfortable with the camera, atleast not yet. This is very evident when she and McKay do the late night wrap in the studio. Mostly Garrison keeps her eyes on McKay and then realizing she’s forgetting to look into the camera at all, she offers a quick flash over to the camera and then returns to the comfort zone of looking at McKay. This is a skill that takes some time and Zina will likely pick it up as she continues to do TV work.

McKay is a long time TV commentator on tennis, a former player, and a tournament director. He knows tennis and his pleasant and professional demeanor works well as someone for the others to feed off of in their commentating.
Now many of my fellow New York natives might object to my thoughts on Marv Albert, but I must offer my opinion. Marv is great at what he does, but tennis just doesn’t seem to be his best forum. It’s not that he’s annoying in the job -- he has toned down his style and dropped his trademark “yes” since it doesn’t fit in to Wimbledon. In fact, Marv is really rather innocuous in this tennis role – he doesn’t hurt the broadcast, but he really doesn’t add anything to it, either. I’m imagining that Marv might like this tennis gig since it’s something different and if that’s the case, keep on doing it. But it certainly won’t be the highlight of his sports broadcasting career.

With week one of Wimbledon decided, the good news is week two is ahead. And with the full coverage tennis fans can expect from TNT, it will be just like you were sitting at SW19 in person watching the matches. Except for at home you can take that bathroom break or snack break without having to fight your way out of Centre Court!