Anyone for tennis?

Decimated draw

September

It’s tough to mind many familiar faces in the top half of the women’s draw. There is 2004 champion No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova, and then there is… well… No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze.

You have to follow tennis with an unmitigated passion to have heard of many of the other women. One of my colleagues, Adam Zagoria, wondered aloud if there was an option in the CBS broadcast to reorder the draw.

Monday morning’s 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. broadcast window will lack star power. Instead, young players Agnieszka Radwanska, Tamira Paszek, Victoria Azarenka, Julia Vakulenko and Agnes Szvay will get a chance at a formal introduction to the tennis public.

Over the years I’ve noticed there are a few things that help young players capitalize on an enexpected win. The first is English. The better a player speaks and is willing to speak, the more people respond. Jelena Jankovic last year had a decent command, and it helped her get press. Marat Safin didn’t have full command of English when he first appeared, but his sense of humor made up the difference.

The other bonus is a local fan base from a player’s home country. Paradorn Srichaphan had a lot of American Thai ticketholders coming out to watch him play. And Gustavo Kuerten always brought out the Brazilians.

Players who love the attention, big personalities, they do well here. Hopefully some of these young women will be able to thrive in front of the Open crowds.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 9:33 pm by Jane McManus.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print | Email

One Response to “Decimated draw”

Miloslav Mecir September 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I know all those New york Serbs are pumped about the developments in tennis.

Its nice to get a look at the future of tennis, just not in prime time. I think the USA network was offering subscribers multiplce channels to choose matches from. Good idea, but I didn’t get that offer.
Maybe CBS classics could run great contests of the same round on some other channel. For instance, if Henin is crushing Safina in some 4th round match, on a B channel CBS could run a classic Seles Graf match which people would no doubt find more compelling.

But I guess thats what the land of the internet holds for us. Unlimited access to better tennis matches from years gone by. In the meantime, don’t bother me, I have to watch the Bondarenko-Chakvatadze classic in the making….......not

It is a condition of your use of the comment features associated with the blogs that you do not: Use the site to post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information of any kind, including without limitation any transmissions constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any local, state, national or international law. You alone are responsible for the material you post or send. Refer to the Terms of Service.