Heather Watson of Great Britain serves in her women’s singles qualifying match against Anett Kontaveit of Estonia ahead of the 2014 French Open at Roland Garros. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
On Monday, Tennis Channel began coverage of this year’s French Open, streaming every men’s and women’s qualifier match on its digital subscription service Tennis Channel Plus. From this week through the end of the tournament, the network will stream 700 hours from Roland Garros.
For the first time ever, viewers can tune in to watch all 196 men’s and women’s qualifiers. Those matches are being held this week, while the main draw starts on May 27 and runs through Jun. 10. Each qualifying match is available on TCP with a few being broadcast live on television. Calling the action are tennis Hall of Famers Martina Navratilova, Jim Courier, Tracy Austin and Lindsay Davenport.
Subscribers will have access to round-the-clock coverage starting every day at 6 a.m. For those who missed something, all-night encore coverage is available every day leading up to next morning’s first match. Replays of select matches will also be condensed down to a quick succession of scoring plays and made available on-demand.
SportTechie Takeaway
Two months ago the Tennis Channel partnered with Verizon to boost TCP, its mobile streaming service. Under that partnership, Verizon will supply an operations team that focuses on technical operations. That allows the Tennis Channel to concentrate on content production rather than the complexities of managing live event streaming. The expansion of coverage from Roland Garros signals that the network is aware that many fans are streaming the action, rather than watching on TV.
