ESPNW and Women's Tennis in General

So ESPN has decided that they will be starting a new version of ESPN. This version will be dedicated to women's sports and all of a sudden advocates of equality etc are up in arms and have taken over twitter.

Jessica Wakeman, of women’s pop culture blog The Frisky, is quoted as saying that “If they were truly inclusive of women, they would try to integrate women into their programming, rather than secluding them off in a ‘pink ghetto.’”

Now I must be missing the point or something but what is wrong about women having their own. Is that not a sign of our independence and a step forward in the great race for equality. I grew up in a culture and environment where the man was king and there was no doubt about who was the head of the household. Even though things have changed, and the reality is that women have most of the responsibility in relation to being head of households etc men are still considered king of the hill.

For years I have been advocating that the women of the WTA and indeed the WTA itself should seriously think about establishing its own network to broadcast women's tennis. Whenever a Masters Series event is being aired, you get coverage on Tennis Channel and ESPNI from the first ball is played until the finals. In some cases you even get doubles coverage. In terms of coverage for the women, you will be lucky if you get coverage from the quarter finals onwards.

In terms of cost cutting, many of the premier events for the women are now being combined with the men's events. In these situations women's tennis gets short shrift. A case in point is this year at Indian Wells and Miami. Both events are premier/mandatories for the women and MS 1000 for the men. I saw every ball that was struck in the men's events but marquee names such as Henin, Sharapova and Clijsters who played these events, especially Indian Wells, their matches were never aired.

It gets even worse. During this year's US Open Series, we saw matches from early on in Washington and lesser events, yet established big draw events featuring the big marquee names in women's tennis, we only saw matches from the quarters on. This was not only for tv but for live streaming as well. It took bloggers on the ground to provide us with updates via twitter and their blogs as to what was happening on the ground.

If ESPN, the world leader in sports marketing can establish a channel dedicated to women's tennis, and it proves profitable, as I think it will, then perhaps they will then get the message that women's sports is a very valuable commodity.

Women cannot be considered equal until and unless they can show that they can perform with men on an equal footing. That means that while it is all well and good for people to shout equality from the rooftops if a channel that is dedicated to women's sports fail, then that would give credence that we are not all equal.

The proof of any pudding is in the eating. I saw bring on the women's sports channel. Feature every kind of women's sports. Offer it at a reasonable price to women and let us see where advertisers put their money.

USO Women's Competition

So another USO has come and gone, or at least the women's portion of the event is over.

Kim Clijsters defeated Vera Zvonreva 6-2, 6-1 in a manner reminiscent of another player defeating a Russian almost 3 years ago in Australia. I watched the match in between changing channels. It took 1 hour exactly. Clijsters' family had numerous watches in the stands. I guess the whole point of that was to set a record for the fastest women's final in US Open history. I wonder if she got it?

It is funny to see how the Tennis Establishment has embraced Kim Clijsters' return to tournament play. In her first career she was known as a head case. A player who could never give it up to the better players. 2 years, a baby and a husband later, she now has 3 Grand Slams, a chance to become No.1 and finally she will perhaps get into the Hall of Fame. I guess she will get there. I wonder though when the questions will be asked as to Clijsters' penchant for only winning majors at one event in the same way that Venus Williams is being written as only being able to win on grass. Somehow I will not hold my breath for that one.

This USO has been a bit of a disappointment for me. Neither of my faves will be lifting a trophy at the final major of the year and for that I am truly sad. Life will go on once again and all I can do is hope that as their careers wind down they will find that last little step to be able to get one more major. I am rooting for that one player, Venus Williams to be able to do it one more time, but alas I am thinking that her time is surely passing her by, but I do believe in miracles and I am hopeful that one day it will happen.

Stanford

So here we are again, the beginning of the USO Series. The time of the year when fans of tennis in North America and elsewhere suffer at the hands of tournament directors and television networks by being deprived of watching live tennis on the internet, or indeed on the expensive cable channels for which they pay. All for the privilege of not getting any tennis on tv.

This is especially so for the women.

This week we have a number of tournaments being played. For the men we have Gstaad and Umag, both on clay and Los Angeles on hard courts. For the women we have Stanford and Istanbul. Both tournaments are being played on hard courts.

Stanford has a bigger and stronger field than Istanbul. The field in Stanford includes Stosur, Dementieva, Sharapova, Ivanovic, Radwanska, Peer and many other notables in the field of women's tennis. In Istanbul we have Larsson, Schynder, Kvitova, Petkovic and a whole host of other players ranked outside the top 20. The difference between both fields is not in the fact that there big name players at one event and not so much big names in Istanbul. It is the coverage.

From the first ball was struck in Istanbul, fans of women's tennis could actually get to watch ball by ball play. There was also excellent commentary from the first ball was struck until close of play. We even got to see doubles. Doubles at what is really a Tier IV event.

Stanford on the other hand. Not even radio tennis. Not even radio coverage. This is the beginning of the Olympus USO Series and not even as much as radio tennis coverage you can get. Why you ask? Well, bloggers who are on the ground have informed us that there is actually live streaming of the event, but it would seem as if the organisers have decided that fans who live in Timbuktu, or even closer Russia, or even Serbia or Poland and who are fans of the players who are playing in Stanford may not actually want to see their players play.

What the organisers have done is provide a live stream of the event to the media personnel who are currently on the ground providing coverage. Apart from Forty Deuce and Global Village Tennis News, I have not read any news accounts about what is happening in Stanford. Chris Oddo from On the Baseline has provided some blogging but they have been centered around individual players.

Forty Deuce and Global Village have been doing a terrific job in providing live match scoring commentary via twitter. Is this the level to which the WTA has allowed women's tennis to wallow. Fans should check out twitter or look at the scoreboard to see who is winning and who is losing.

For years Stanford had a live stream that was 300 feet from the court, had no commentary and barely any sound but fans appreciated it every year until we got tv coverage. This year nothing. Stanford is a well attended event as Californians love their tennis. There is no reason why the event should not be livestreamed until it is available on television. As it is by the time Friday rolls around, we would be lucky if most of the marquee names have not already been sent home and all we are left with would be a list of players similar to those playing in Istanbul. That might not be a bad thing.

US Open Series

Hello fans of tennis. It is that time of year again when the women of the WTA begin competing in the US Open Series, culminating in the last major of the year, the US Open.

To those who do not know, the USO Series is a series of events during the US hard court season which traverses the United States. There are usually 4 events, Stanford, Los Angeles, Cincinatti and Toronto/Montreal. The winner of the USO Series gets US$1M and if said winner wins both the USO Series and the US Open, they are guaranteed to double their prize money. Financially it is an incentive to players to play these events. The problem though is that these events happen at the tough end of the tennis season and it usually finds the top players all banged up and bruised. Withdrawals are a part of this time of the season.

In checking the preliminary tv schedules for both Tennis Channel and ESPN, we find that most of the events that feature the women will start airing at the quarter final stage. I believe the same will obtain for the men, save and except for their Masters Series events in Montreal and Cincinatti.

I am aware that there is not a lot of sponsorship going on right now in tennis, and usually when tennis gets to the States for some reason that is when all live streams on the internet go dark. Someone needs to tell tournament directors that whether they live stream their events or not, if people want to come to these events they will come regardless. Nobody likes sitting in front of a computer screen watching tennis, but for those of us who do not reside in the US, would it kill these people to provide live streams for those of us outside the US?

This week, (16 July) I have been fortunate to watch some matches in places like Portoroz (Slovenia Open) and Bad Gastein. Bad Gastein is a clay court event and while I was quite happy to watch the live stream, my experience was not pleasant as the camera angles were set in such a way that it made for poor viewing. Portoroz was a very good event and I now have a new fave in Polono Hercog.

One thing that I noticed from those 2 events that I have been watching this week is the lack of grunting/screaming. However, would it kill the announcers to stop referring to these grown women as girls. I cannot recall hearing the men being described as boys. It kind of galls me to hear them talking about married women who are currently on Tour and playing as girls.

There are some intriguing story lines coming up during this summer hard court season and I will have a post about that showing my list contenders and floaters.

The Anti-Fan

What is an anti-fan? An Anti Fan is for one thing not a fan of tennis. An Anti Fan is for want of a better description a troll. An Anti-Fan are the ones who come out from under the bridge when the following people have won a tennis tournament:

· Roger Federer

· Rafael Nadal

· Novak Djokovic

· Juan Martin del Potro

· Andy Murray

· Serena Williams

· Venus Williams

· Kim Clijsters

· Justine Henin

· Maria Sharapova

· Caroline Wozniacki

· Victoria Azarenka, and

· Dinara Safina

· Jelena Jankovic

· Ana Ivanovic

Now you may be saying, but these are all top players, why would there be anti-fans when these players win tournaments. These are the big names in tennis. Well for starters the anti-fan will usually come out after a victory by any of the above players by stating a few things about the victory. These statements can cover a whole host of things but are usually along the following lines:

· Surface

· No top players faced

· Ugly game

· It was because so and so was not in the draw

· It was because so and so lost and so he/she did not have to face him/her

· It was a lower level event

· Schedule

· Injury

· Had no match play

I am sure that any of us reading the above excuses have at one time or another made these comments on message boards the world over. We may think we are contributing to the discussions but what we are really doing is becoming a virtual anti-fan. For each victory that we celebrate for our favourite tennis player we have to remember that some other fan somewhere is despairing over another loss. For every vamos, come on, adje, allez and fist pump that our faves celebrate, somewhere another fan is holding a towel, a flag or a piece of tissue while wiping away tears as their favourites suffer another defeat. As such, when we visit message boards sometimes to find commiserations or to celebrate with our virtual friends, we need to remember that there are those amongst us whose sole purpose in life is to come out and rain on the parade.

Today, 3 tennis professionals who have not won a title in quite awhile were successful in doing so. Rafael Nadal, won his 16^th Masters Shield today by beating Fernando Verdasco. There are stories floating around the internet that have some folks saying well “Nadal did not beat a top 10 player”, well guess what, there was a top 10 player in the draw and Verdasco took him out in straight sets. As a matter of fact the victory by Verdasco over Djokovic was what you would call an old fashioned thumping. Today, Sam Stosur got a win over Vera Zvonreva in Charleston in a Premier event. This was Stosur’s second title. She served well, kept her focus and finished the match with 36 winners. Her opponent had 4. If you think there were a lot of unforced errors, think again. Vera had 8 while Stosur had 11. The first set was over in 18 minutes.

In Barcelona, Francesca Schiavone won over Roberta Vinci, the defending champion 1 and 1. I saw that match and it was a fantastic display of clay court tennis. Schiavone played well within herself and deserved to win that match. The anti-fans were all over the place just raining on the parades of both Stosur and Nadal. The claims being made by the anti-fans were that neither player beat any top players to win the title. Does not matter. A victory is a victory. If that is the case that we are going to put asterisks against the wins or losses of every player then we would be writing articles like this every day.

Last year some alluded to Roger Federer’s wins at the French Open and Wimbledon was purely due to Rafael Nadal’s injuries. Foolishness. By the same token Rafael Nadal’s wins over Federer could be attributed to all sorts of injuries of his opponents. When we attempt to justify our arguments by belittling the accomplishments of what we consider are not our favourite players we do a disservice to this game that we all claim to love so much. A victory over any opponent, no matter where he or she is ranked is a victory. Does Federer’s Roland Garros triumph less remarkable because he did not beat Rafael Nadal? Or is Serena’s Williams victory over Justine Henin at this year’s Australian Open not significant seeing as Justine was only playing her second tournament since her return from sabbatical? We have to start ignoring the anti-fans when they come out spewing this type of nonsense because at the end of the day, when our faves win, there will be anti-fan out there somewhere ready to pounce and say “well, he/she won because …”

Internet, Tennis and Tennis Fans

Tennis has this reputation of being a very genteel sport. There are so many rules attached to this game that sometimes one wonders how the game got a chance to evolve in the way it did because there were so many restrictions placed on players. As a matter of fact there are still restrictions placed on players especially at the majors, and in particular Wimbledon. The all white dress code, the curtsey (think that is no longer required by the women) and the standard of referencing each gender of the draw as Ladies and Gentlemen. I love Wimbledon. It is my favourite tournament of all tournaments and it is my dream to visit there one day and perhaps visit Centre Court, but for now I will just continue to enjoy the tournament from the comfort of my living room.

You may be wondering we are hardly even out of the Spring hard court season, have yet to touch clay, and you are already thinking of Wimbledon, but this post is not about Wimbledon. This post is about the Internet and tennis fans and the rules that govern the behaviour of fans of this sport.

Have you ever heard of a FeDal war? No. Well, a FeDal war is an Internet phenomenon that can be found on many message boards around the Internet. They are discussions that border on the insane between fans of Roger Federer, the current No.1 on the men's side and Rafael Nadal, the current No. 3 on the men's side. Roger and Rafa are good friends. They have practiced together, played together and both have said in press conferences how much respect they have for each other and what each has done to grow the sport of tennis. It is clear that in the beginning there was some animosity between both the Federer and Nadal camps as a result of the behaviour or alleged behaviour of the Nadal camp during matches (on court coaching) and comments attributed to Federer after yet another loss to Nadal (one dimensional springs to mind).

However, as the years have progressed and with each player carving their own little niche in tennis and making their own history and have made up, it would seem as if the fans have not yet made up. The viciousness of the posts of many bloggers and those who post comments on them would make you marvel at the fact that both sides describe themselves as fans of Federer or Nadal. Both sides will state how much they respect their player's humility, his sportsmanship and all the other attributes of their faves, yet they will then go on a message board and threaten, perhaps not in so many words, to decapitate someone that they have never met, will perhaps never meet just because that person may have posted something that they consider to be in bad form against their favourite player.

Recently, the FeDal wars have taken a turn for the worse and we now have the women getting in on the act. There are the fans who are for the pushers (you know those defensive players who frustrate the dickens out of you on a tennis court until you give up in frustration) and the fans of the ball bashers (those who hit the ball hard and when that does not work they hit it even harder). The ball bashers are also known to either shriek or grunt as they hit the ball which has made them a tennis phenom. There are varying sides on message boards these days who take arguing these points to a level that I have never before seen in all my days of following tennis.

I write this blog about tennis because I am a fan. I have to say within the past year I have been visiting many blogs and have been giving my opinions on various topics. I try not to get involved in virtual wars with people, but last night during a match between 2 players (WTA) that I do not particularly care for I had occassion to say that I felt that one player was exhibiting poor sportsmanship in terms of her use of the challenge system. A poster took offence to that and proceeded to state that "I could post things but I wont". Now I did not know how to take that comment, so I decided that for my peace of mind it may be a good thing to just take my leave of that particular message board for a short while.

It could have been that the poster meant that they could post some examples of unsportsmanlike behaviour that one of my faves has exhibited in the past, but I was genuinely astonished and afraid that the poster was about to go personal on a subject that was being discussed freely on the board.

It just made me realise that while the sport that we support has genteel roots, the fans these days are less so.

It is clear that we have not learnt from the damage that was done to Monica Seles by a rabid Steffi Graf fan all those years ago. Fans are wondering now why they cannot get too close to their favourite player to get autographs or go down and perhaps touch the arm that can do so much damage on a tennis court, but in these times when fans have taken fandom to a level that is downright scary, one has to wonder how long before some idiot decides that he is tired of seeing his favourite player lose to a Serena or Federer or Nadal and decides to harm either one of these players.

Without fans the sport will die. It is essential however that we as fans try and curb our enthusiasm and vitriol.

I am trying to figure out what has made us all become so invested in our favourite players. Is it because all the information on Roger and Rafael and Serena and Caroline is but a click away? Do we believe that we know them because we can go on their websites or join them on twitter or facebook and write little notes to them and they respond we feel like they are our best friends? I think we need to give ourselves a reality check. These people do not know us. Some of them really do not even care to know us. I am a fan of Serena, Venus, Federer, Wozniacki, Radwanska etc., Apart from Serena and Venus I do not think that I have visited a player's website to get updates or left a message. I believe the only message I have left for either Serena and Venus is to ask them to reconsider the whole Indian Wells situation. I am yet to get a response.

I have no interest in heading to a tournament to see a Roger Federer "Genius at Work" banner, neither am I inclined to sign it. If I was a Rafa fan, I would not scour the Internet and spend hours of quality time discussing the clothes that he wears. Matter of fact I do not even do that with my faves. Does that make me a bad fan? No, it makes me a reasonable thinking person. I wish that all fans were like that. Reasonable, thinking people.

On that note, I will be taking a break from posting for a couple of weeks. Will perhaps be back after Miami.

Take care all and remember, please behave reasonably on message boards.

Indian Wells

Well, well, well. Should I do it? Yes, I think I will. So yesterday we had approximately 48 matches scheduled at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Of those 48 matches, approximately 40% of them (or roughly 19) were women's matches. Of those approximately 19 scheduled women's matches only 2 were thought to be worthy of broadcast to the tennis watching public. That was Kuznetsova who went down to Navarro and Clijsters who beat Barbara Strylocova. The Tennis Channel has been regaling us with the fact that they have almost 90 hours of broadcast from IW. All fine and good but the only match that TC considered worthy to air was that of American Sloane Stephens against Vera Z. Now, it did not help that many people who had the tennistv.com feed were not able to see that particular match as the feed was giving all sorts of trouble.

In addition to not seeing many more women's matches, we also had to suffer the indignity of having men's doubles matches being aired. Now these doubles matches were not doubles matches featuring the top teams in doubles, but make up doubles teams of some top players. I have no issue with that as the crowds for that particular match were standing room only. What annoys me is that this match got tv coverage and the women's matches are not getting any coverage at all.

One of the problems that I have with television coverage of women's events is that we as fans never get to see the up and coming players and so when they finally hit it big questions are being asked well where did she come from. Last night the defending champion on the women's side played a young up and coming American called Sloane Stephens. I have never seen Stephens but from what those on the ground were saying on twitter, a few more years and experience and she will be one to watch. Last year's losing finalist Ana Ivanovic went out in the first round to Semastova, a talented young Latvian who a few weeks ago took out another Serb, Jelena Jankovic in Monterey. I know this because I saw it on a live stream. Yes, a tournament in Monterey Mexico had a live feed of their event.

The week before Monterey there was a little known tournament in Acapulco, Mexico won by Venus Williams. It was a combined event. There was daily coverage of the men's events. Not one single pixel of the women's events were shown however. Not even as much as a highlight reel. Pathetic.

I have said it before and will continue to say it. The WTA needs to start addressing the issues that women's tennis faces in terms of broadcasting of women's matches. 2 of the stars of the game who are being touted as the next big thing played their matches in virtual obscurity as there was no coverage of IW until this Saturday. In addition Maria Sharapova played her match in which she struggled to even win points on her serve did not get shown. This year's Australian Open finalist as well as a former No. 1 played her second round match in which she got beat by Gisela Dulko in obscurity as her match was not televised.

Indian Wells is a Masters Series event for the men and mandatory for all the top male players. Indian Wells is a Premier Mandatory event for the women and the women will get fined, suspended (with obvious exception clauses) and lose out on bonus money and points if they do not play. Clearly, this is an important tournament for both tours. Why is it then that the men get full coverage and the women are only given a half hearted attempt at coverage by the media.

I think it is time that the WTA looks long and hard about establishing its own network. I am sure that there are many fans like myself who will be only too willing to pay the money to subscribe to this particular channel. Before the WTA began its journey to what it is now, Billie Jean King and Rosie Casalas realised that there was no way that the women could continue to perform in tournaments and not get paid for their efforts. I think the same thing applies here now. The women are being ignored in their tournaments. I think if the WTA gets a contribution of 10% of each player's yearly earnings and puts it towards the establishment of a network, I am sure that there would be many investors who would be willing to provide backing for this venture.

You only have to look at the number of message boards and how they light up at nights when a women's match is being played. People from all over the world searching the Internet trying to find a live feed of an event.

I will continue to write about this issue until someone at least starts to do something.

The next combined event will be the Sony Ericsson Open. I know it will be more of the same and perhaps even worse as it comes on the heels of March Madness in basketball, TC is not advertising that they will be providing coverage and we all know that Fox Sports sucks at providing decent tennis coverage. In addition people like me in the Caribbean do not get Fox as part of our sports package so we are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.