NBC Friday morning for the first time added "live Internet streaming to its broadcast" of the men’s French Open semifinals, according to Tom Perrotta of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. The net is airing the Novak Djokovic-Roger Federer match "in its entirety on NBCSports.com.” NBC Senior Dir of Communciations Adam Freifeld said that the network will begin "its television coverage at 11 a.m. in all time zones" following the airing of "Today." NBC's live coverage in the Eastern Time Zone began with the first semifinal of the day, Rafael Nadal-Andy Murray, which aired live on Tennis Channel in its entirety. The move to live coverage online “follows complaints in recent years from tennis fans who could only see tape-delayed tennis ... depending on the length of the matches and the time zone.” The combination of Internet and TV broadcasts “likely will still leave many viewers on the West Coast without live tennis on their televisions” (WSJ.com, 6/2). In L.A., Diane Pucin noted in the event live tennis is over for the day at 11:00am PT, NBC "will show the entire Federer-Djokovic on tape delay" (LATIMES.com, 6/2). Golf World’s Geoff Shackelford wrote on his Twitter account, “NBC showing Backstreet Boys and New Kids now on West Coast & two more hours of Today. Will join Federer-Djok in progress in two hours. Lame” (TWITTER.com, 6/3).
DON'T CHANGE THAT DIAL: SI.com’s Bruce Jenkins wrote when Tennis Channel's Mary Carillo and Martina Navratilova are handling courtside analysis, “never dismiss or fast-forward your way through a match.” Jenkins: “You might miss something.” Navratilova during the second set of Sunday's fourth-round match between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Vera Zvonareva blamed "two factors for the trend away from net-rushing: the new-technology rackets, allowing for stronger, more accurate passing shots, and the courts themselves.” She said, "The courts are too slow." Meanwhile, Jenkins complimented Tennis Channel's Justin Gimelstob for his report that Nadal "was ‘irate’ over the fact that Fabio Fognini was able to continue playing against Albert Montanes in Sunday's five-set, fourth-round marathon, despite the fact that Fognini was obviously suffering from cramps.” Nadal and Federer “head up the players' council, and they spearheaded the new rule that allows injury timeouts only for legitimate injuries, not cramping” (SI.com, 5/31).
THE QUEEN OF THE COURT RETURNS: ESPN on Thursday announced that Chris Evert will serve as an analyst for the net’s Wimbledon and US Open broadcasts. She will make her debut from London on June 20 working both in the studio and calling matches (ESPN). Evert has previously worked tennis matches for NBC and CBS, but she "has been off-air for a decade" (USA TODAY, 6/3).
