From: clc5q@hemlock.cs.Virginia.EDU (Clark L. Coleman)
Subject: Re: US Open - General Observations
Organization: University of Virginia Computer Science Department
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:10:21 GMT

In article <18nj0cINNh4@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> ananth@universe.som.cwru.edu (Ananth Srinivasan) writes:
>After the Courier-Agassi encounter last night, the jokers
>have exited and now we can watch some real tennis! It
>should be a great Saturday/Sunday of tennis.

Amen. The people who aren't really tennis fans can probably turn off their
TV sets and the rest of us can enjoy it.

A general comment about TV sports.  The audience for big events tends to be
composed largely of very casual fans who outnumber the serious, knowledgeable
fans.  For example, I am bored to death by baseball until the playoffs come,
and might not even watch until the World Series.  When the World Series is
broadcast, ignorant fans like myself are probably in the majority. The hard
core baseball fan who has memorized a million statistics is probably quite
frustrated upon hearing the announcers explain elementary aspects of the game,
or explain that Joe Blow, who is now coming up to bat, was acquired in a trade
from the Tigers just 2 months ago, etc.  He knows all that, and it reminds
him that the telecast is not really oriented towards him.  When the casual fans
cast votes for All-Star teams in any sport, they frustrate serious fans by
voting in droves for fat old has-beens who can't play any more.

Similarly, when I watch Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, I am made painfully aware
that I am badly outnumbered by people who only watch tennis twice a year.
My wife would rather see shots of Princess Diana or Johnny Carson up in the
stands than to see the tennis. "Let's see the girlfriends of the players
again --- I want to look them over."  The casual fan doesn't want to hear,
"In the 15 times that Smith and Jones have played each other, this is only
the 4th tiebreaker, and Jones has won the previous 3."  I want to hear that
stuff, but the average twice a year tennis fan is sitting around saying,
"Why the heck are they showing Brad Gilbert and Michael Stich play a five
set match? Where's Jimbo the Buffoon?"

That's what is so great about the Australian Open and the weekly tournaments.
The ignorant masses of casual American fans are not watching, so we can talk
about tennis between points.

>
>I hope that other countries are getting their own TV
>coverage and not the USA channel feed. Who are these
>clowns Bartan, Myers, Ted whatever? Does tennis coverage
>need fools like these to draw an audience? Can you imagine
>this happening at a football/baseball game? NBC does this
>with the Enberg/Collins team year after year at the French
>and Wimbledon.

I have been meaning to post about the incredibly bad job done
by the announcers.

Exhibit A: Several times, I have heard "Ivan Lendl dropped as low as
    number 11 in the rankings this summer!"  Actually, Lendl dropped
    to number 12. The latest Tennis magazine (U.S. Open issue) should
    be available as a reference to anyone announcing the Open, right?
    It has the July 13, 1992 rankings, which show Lendl #12.  This was
    all posted and discussed here at the time.

Exhibit B: Becker mishits a topspin forehand from the baseline. It makes
    a crazy dive through the air with underspin, lands just over the net,
    and Lendl is unable to get to it.  The announcer says, "Look at this
    drop shot from Becker!"  Then, they show Becker hitting it in a slow
    motion replay.  You can see Becker making a looping forehand topspin
    shot, which is why Lendl did not anticipate what happened. As the
    racket hits the ball, you can clearly see the frame making contact.
    The announcer says, "Becker put so much backspin on this drop shot
    that Lendl just couldn't get to it!"

They could also make some insightful comments from time to time. For example,
it was obvious that when Courier was struggling through the second set
against that fruitcake from Las Vegas that his real problem was that he
was overhitting and trying very low percentage shots. If Agassi was standing
over at one doubles alley, Courier would fail to hit to the other corner.
If Agassi came in to the net and volleyed into the corner, Courier had to
hit a running forehand and tried to hit it cross court, back across his own
body, when the down the line was easier and is where the open court was. If
it had gone over the net, it was right to Agassi, anyway. Etc., etc. Instead,
we just get comments like, "Courier couldn't get that one" or "He hit it
into the net."

>At the post match interview, Agassi is reported to have said
>that Sampras will take Courier easily in the semis. Taken together
>with the comments of Connors and that unknown fool who got
>beaten by Lendl, this year's grapes served in the locker
>room must have come from a bad batch!!

Classic behavior from an 8 year old boy, and unfortunately also from our
little boy wonder tennis stars who never grew up. Last year, Ivanisevic
lost to Lendl in 4 sets and couldn't come up with anything good to say
about Lendl, ending his speech by predicting that Stich would beat Lendl
easily in the next round, that Lendl couldn't keep winning against the
younger power players, etc.  Lendl beat Stich in 5. Interesting that
we keep getting reminded that Lendl isn't going to be able to keep up
with these young big-hitting players, but he beat Krajicek, Ivanisevic
and Stich last year, then lost to Edberg, who depends on placement and
foot speed, etc., not on 130 m.p.h. serves.  After Lendl retired against
Ivanisevic at Wimbledon this year, Goran was gracious enough to predict
that Lendl would never win Wimbledon, that there would always be some
young power player to come knock him off even if he is having a good
tournament, etc. (Deja vu.)

So, now Agassi is a childish, sore loser. No surprise. His Wimbledon
success will not likely be repeated.

By the way, as of this writing, the remaining players on the men's side
include only one (Sampras) or two (Ferreira) of the young power hitting,
big serving, serve and volley specialists. We had in the quarterfinals
5 baseline players (Agassi, Courier, Volkov, Chang, Lendl) and one serve
and volley player (Edberg) who is not what I would call a big hitter.
Yet everyone continues to announce that the Stich/Ivanisevic/Krajicek
crowd is going to dominate tennis, there is no hope for everyone else,
etc. It is getting kind of old.  What have big mouths like Ivanisevic
and Krajicek actually accomplished in their careers? Stich is also
having a bad year, as is Forget, another power hitter and server. And
Chang and Courier and Lendl are still out there contending.  The worship
of the big serve seems unrelated to its actual success on the court.
How is Marc Rosset enjoying the telecast, I wonder?


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"It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once." David Hume
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