The Tennis Docket: July 26, 2021
Tennis news this week largely centered on action from the Olympics and Novak Djokovic’s quest for the Golden Slam.
The Timezone Problem for Tennis
The Tokyo Olympics is the perfect illustration of one of the challenges that tennis has attracting television viewership in the United States. The daily order of play starts at 10pm ET and concludes about the time that most Americans are rolling out of bed the next morning. Casual fans aren’t likely to stumble across tennis matches during that hour. It’s a tough watch for even hard core tennis fans such as myself.
Olympic Tennis Draws and How to Stream
The Tokyo Olympic Tennis competition got underway yesterday evening and ran overnight. With the timezone differential, Olympic tennis will be played from 10pm through 6am Eastern Time during the early rounds. That is basically overnight, for the continental United States. Additionally, tennis matches will not be broadcast on the Tennis Channel as was the practice with previous Olympic competitions. The primary station in the United States will be the Olympics Channel.
It’s Raining Czechs in the WTA
As dominant as the United States women are in professional tennis at the moment, there is one country that is arguably just as strong: The Czech Republic. The small country currently boasts five players in the top 50 in the WTA singles rankings. Additionally, with six of the top 50 WTA doubles players including three in the top 10, the tiny country is a usually a prohibitive favorite to carry the Fed Cup doubles tie.
Seeing Serena
‘Seeing Serena’ is an unauthorized biography of Serena Williams recently published by Gerald Marzorati, a tennis writer for the New Yorker. The book chronicles Serena’s return to tennis competition after giving birth to her daughter. Without any special access to Serena and her inner circle, Marzorati examines the player from an external perspective and through the lens of himself as a middle aged white man. He navigates those treacherous waters with skill. The result is a compelling and multi-faceted portrait of Serena.
Court Pace Ratings
The section on Classification of Court Pace is found in Appendix I of the ‘ITF Rules of Tennis’ which is published as a part of the USTA ‘Friend at Court.’ It provides some basic information and references out to the ITF technical manual that provides excruciating details of the test procedures. Today’s post narrowly focuses on what is contained in the actual tennis rules. It is interesting but largely irrelevant to actual match play.
2 responsesGyro Spinner for Tennis Wrist Strength?
A recent Wall Street Journal article recommended usage of a gyro hand spinner to increase wrist strength for tennis. It was in response to a question from a reader who was seeking tips to hit a one handed backhand better. The article claimed that the primary difference between a one and two handed backhand and essentially comes down to wrist strength. I think there is a lot more to it than that.
The Tennis Docket: July 19, 2021
I tried something a little different this week to expand the breadth of news that appears on this site. This post highlights the tennis news stories that were just outside of the mainstream media from the past week that I found to be interesting or compelling. Please drop me a comment and let me know what you think.
2 responsesThe Peacock Disaster
In the United States television broadcasts of the 2021 Roland Garros tournament (more popularly known as the French Open) was carried by a partnership between NBC and the Tennis Channel. For the first time in history, the addition of lights at Roland Garros enabled a night session at the tournament. The tournament organizers decided that the start of the night session would be 9pm time in Paris. From a media perspective, this should have created a viewing bonanza in the United States. Unfortunately, tennis fans will likely remember what happened this year as the Peacock disaster.
When Tennis Left the United States
Last week the Umpire who Gave Birth to Me clipped out a column from my hometown newspaper titled “Where have you gone Conners, McEnroe, Agassi and Pete?” When exploring the fragmented nature of media coverage of professional tennis in the United States yesterday, I may have stumbled onto a possible answer to that question. The stars of American tennis didn’t leave the sport but rather the sport left the United States.