Could someone please tell me why we are seeing hours of commentator galleries instead of seeing the matches? It is aggravating to see constantly the whole army of commentators with even Suzy Kolber from football talking and talking and talking and when they finally finish talking about tennis history we go to a commercial!!!!!

---

^..^ /\_/\

If you have Direct TV go to 701 for interactive viewing of 5 different courts without commercial interruption and much less chatter.

 

allows you the option of choosing the match you want to watch too

I agree with you WH..panel of "experts" enuf already..but I gotta admit , they are showing a hell of a lot (and complete) mens' matches..ok by me.

Today I noted that they made Mary Carillo center chair. So they are moving things around. Drysdale and Enberg are being shuffled about, as well as all the rest. ESPN is literally auditioning..... all of them. Patrick McEnroe is in the drivers seat to become the head of it all. Fowler and Gilbert are doing well, but last year Fowler had the central chair more often than he has this year.

But this is ABSOLUTELY.... THE BEST.... crew of tennis commentators.... on the air. This is an air tight crew. This is the BEST in the tennis world; they are better than TTC, and better than NBC, and better than all the rest, and now they have high definition going on. Man, is this cool;-- the green lawns have never been so green for the viewers as they are right now. The sky has never been as blue.

I think we are in good hands, actually. I would not have brought in Kolber and I would have given Fowler and P-Mac equal time, and I'd have NEVER hired in any old cuss like Bud Collins. Out with the old and in with the new, except for the VAULTED COMBINATION of Drysdale and Patrick. That has a certain comfort with which I am so familiar, going all the way back to seeing Kournakova stomped by a Williams sister. The Drysdale- PMAC combo is like an old pillow that you rest an arm upon, as you watch familiar television. They never had honest chemistry, but they do have a delightful HISTORY, and sometimes history stands for something.

I also like Carillo and Fernandez calling the WTA matches.

Shriver is coming around. She was right on the money that Navratilova was the finest net player of all time. She's getting better. Cahill is getting better; he's learning camera angles and comfort on the set. I DO see... SOMETIMES.... a certain condescension... where the men are concerned.... about the womens game. Gilbert and Cahill are both a little glib sometimes. But both are getting better and better; this crew is aging with me...... and aging like fine wine.

The entire crew is getting better. So ESPN is doing some things.... to SEE who will be.... in the make on this next decade. They are challenging commentators to come up with their best, and obviously keeping them off balance as to who and where they are going with.....

I honestly think that Patrick McEnroe is going to be THE MAN.... and that he's in the driver's seat to become that man.

Brad Gilbert is a SAGE of tennis; he's so insightfull that it is inSANE... but he does NOT know the womens game like the other female commentators do.

"Every other day.... ya gotta find a way.... to win three sets." That's Gilbert for breaking it down, and breaking it down NICELY. The man is a genius.

ESPN is in a far better position to bring new fans in than they were years ago with guys like Mal Washington at bat.

And with HIGH DEFINITION? I decline to think that there are not millions of guys out there checking out these pretty women of the WTA.    

  

  

 

 

 

  

---

Carpe Diem, my friend... all the way to the end:
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/d496d2b51c19e1cd5b

Iceman, you are still my kinda guy. But what about John McEnroe? We'll be immersed in his commentary over the weekend on NBC. Let us know what you think.

 

I didn't complain about the quality of the commentators, but about the fact that we must see the gallery of them instead of seeing the people who play tennis, except, of course, for Mister Federer ans Shriekapova, who's matches are showed at least three times.... the others don't count

---

^..^ /\_/\

The broadcast is exasperating. Unless you have espn360 or directv when they have choices it is unbearable. There will be matches going on but all they give you are talking heads in a studio. And can Martina give the "when I played Chris" stories a rest?  

ESPN is still into political correctness, showing an equal amount of womens matches versus mens matches. So this morning, I turned on ESPN 11 thinking that maybe I would get to see Murray, Dr. Ivo, Federer, etc. Instead I had to sit through an excruciatingly boring match of a 17 year old girl from Marietta, Georgia versus an unknown from Poland. And all they did was hit moonballs for two hours as if we were back in the day watching Chris Evert or Tracy Austin stay out on the court all day long.  We even got the inevitable discussion from Pam Shriver about some match she played at the tail end of her career. Mary Jo Fernandez is easy enough on the eyes but she is always struggling for something new to say. For mens matches, Darrin Cahill is pretty good. He has the Aussie sense of brevity, not droning on and on ad nauseum about Davis Cup matches (PMac does this incessantly). Chris Fowler insists on making all the players seem saintly and Martina Navratilova seems to dwell alot on tennis as it was played in the 1980s. I almost expect Martina to start talking about some match she played against Hana Mandlikova in the  1980s.  Bud Collins has very little to add but he is always in a jolly mood and I enjoyed it when he started blabberiing about Richard Sears the other day. I had to look  it up but Mr. Sears won Wimbledon in the 1880s. Bud finally decided to be current and told a story about Fiery Fred Stolle. That was priceless. 

Geez, you guys are tough critics. Certainly, Drysdale and pMac are appreciated, no? And I just like hearing Gilbert do a match. He really brings out the usually undisclosed strategies involved. I also like Cahill and Carillo is always pretty good and even Pam Shriver is interesting.

They're showing more and different matches than in year's past. They bring the players in for interviews. Supposedly, ESPN was also responsible with their clout of getting Americans like Querrey to play on Centre Court. What else do you want? This is American and American tv. It's not the BBC, which even the Tennis Channel gives you their commentary, which is cool.

I like him too. He has a calm voice that translates well to television. His voice does not grate on the nerves like Mal Washington used to do sometimes. I like him when he's so into the match that he totally relaxes, and points out little things. He's good, but not as good as his younger brother.

---

Carpe Diem, my friend... all the way to the end:
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/d496d2b51c19e1cd5b

ESPN has a good streaming site 360.com and over the weekend they had a choice of matches on directv. That's the good news. The bad news is that their general broadcast is in dire need of improvement. They spend much too much time with the talking heads in the studio. There is tennis going on but instead they show the retired players in the studio telling tales of yesteryear ("When I played Chris at the French in 1984......") Why not show the match? The polititical correct thing gets tiring as well. From what I've seen during the week on the broadcast, you wouldn't know there are any men's matches at Wimbledon. We get every minute of Venus and , Serena and then an agonzingly long match with young Oudin and Radzwanka (I think it was her but I conked out and memory is a little hazy). Before I fell asleep I saw one moonball after another. All this while there were great but unseen men's matches going on. Unless you have access to 360.com or directv channel choice don't bother watching anything on the main broadcast unless you have trouble sleeping.

Re: Commentators, angles and exclamations.

Reply

If I hear one more time"how did he/she create that angle" I am going to scream. There are noangles to create; they all exist already, pick one from 1 to 179 degrees, depending on where you are on the court and where you want the ball to land.Also if somebody just witnessed something, he cannot say “unbelievable”. If one just saw it, it cannot be unbeliavable. Unbeliavable is reserved for when somebody is told something out of the ordinary.Extraordinary would be the appropriate term.

Here's  another annoying habit they have. They always describe players by nationality as if the audience is too dumb to know what country  the players are from. They refer to Fed as "the Swiss", Soderling as "the Swede" and so forth. What a silly way to broadcast.