CBS had today's coverage and it was dismal. They showed so many commercials that you could not get into any match. They even showed commercials during the even games. They didn't even wait for the changeover. The broadcasting crew, obviously under orders from the big boss droned on and on about upcoming CBS sitcoms as if these soon to be canceled sitcoms were just what they wanted to talk about.

When the crew was not peddling CBS sitcoms they were apparently not aware of who was on court. Rafa was playing Almagro and they droned on about a WTA dinner and what Jennifer Capriatti's mom said and then they went into a long pointless story about Jennifer from 20 years ago. Meanwhile the Nadal match went on unnoticed by anyone at CBS.

If this is how CBS plans to cover the semi finals and finals, it will be a long afternoon indeed.

Actually the announcing of the Rafa match was even worse. In the middle of a point, Mary Carillo changed the subject to Tracy Austin and talked about how Tracy restablished herself in the ladies locker room. What on earth does Tracy Austin have to do with Rafael Nadal? The only similarity in the way Rafa and Tracy played tennis was that the dimensions of the tennis court are the same. That is it. So what is the point of yipyapping about Tracy Austin in a mens' match? CBS has got to get someone like Courier into the booth during mens' matches.

CBS should be called the network of women's tennis from yesteryear. Fortunately I left the TV set and did not have to endure the pointless retelling of the Tracy  Austin saga by the broadcasters but I did hear the tale of Jennifer Capriatti that went on forever. Rafa was on court but CBS was busy with Jennifer's teenage growing pains of twenty years ago. It was not like there was any news about Jennifer. Those sitcom commercials are awful too and they show them while the players are on court. They fired Pat Summerall, Tony Trabert, and John Newcombe because they said they were too old.  CBS should get on its knees and invite them back.

I am glad I have  a busy day and will not be able to watch the tennis on CBS.  The CBS outlet here will show the Jerry Lewis telethon and no tennis.  I checked and I believe the Tennis Channel is not showing tennis live tonight.  I am out unless I find time to get on the computer and go to channelsurfing.

What happened to Nadal?  I saw  trainer putting something on his stomack and could not guess what was happening.

"The U.S. Open on NFL Today" was more like it yesterday on CBS. *** Enberg constantly yapped about the start of the football season and at one moment mentioned a surprising trade between the Patriots and the Raiders. Did anyone care? I think not. Football fans who needed a fix yesterday were probably watching the NFL Network not CBS with players they haven't heard of. After the plug for the new drama "Three Rivers", Enberg goes on to talk about the Steelers game at Three Rivers Stadium in a couple of weeks.

But CBS's fallback position is to always mention Andy Roddick at every opportunity. At the end of the broadcast to avoid showing some of the matches still in progress, they replay the tiebreaker that they abandoned the other night due to contractual obligations. Even on tape, Roddick is in the mix.

In the NYC market they interrupted tennis at 12 to show local news. Meanwhile matches in progress that were showing cannot be seen. Absolutely pathetic.

On top of that they blocked live streamng video and obviously preventing TC or ESPN from picking up the slack. 

These networks should be held to strict telecast rules by the ITF-ATP-WTA or else they will be fined and/or lose their rights. What a JOKE!

Pat Sumerall had such a charm to him that when he would get bored with a tennis match and start yapping about how "Timmy Newsom will start for the Cowboys on Sunday" it didn't bother me the way it does now when the cookie cutter announcers start discussing network programming in the middle of a match. When john Newcombe was doing the matches with Pat, I always got the impression that Newk would rather be off somewhere having a beer with Fred and Emmo and watching the match on television but Newk had the Aussie joy of life that made listening to him so pleasurable. I have an Aussie friend who made a tape for me of the Australian telecast of the 2001 US Open finals with Sampras getting upset by Hewitt and the Aussie broadcast crew is Newk and Fred Stolle. Listening to those two tennis immortals cover a match is like watching a match while having a few beers with two old friends. They don't take themselves overly seriously but they both know their tennis inside and out. And while the Enberg-Carillo Mac team doing the same broadcast only talked about Pete and what the match means to Pete, Newk and Fred were not surprised that Lleyton shellacked Pete and both said right at the start of the match that Hewitt is coming into his own and Pete was in decline. And not once did they drift off into meaningless prattle about some long ago ladies match as Mary Carillo tends to do. Lately she has interrupted Mr. Enberg to talk about the WTA dinner that she attended.      

The Nadal Almagro match might as well have been a senior women's match the way the CBS broadcastors did it. There were the long stories about that WTA dinner followed by more blather about Jennifer Capriatti's teenage career and then more about how Jennifer compares to Melanie Oudin and that was all I could take. I missed the never ending voyage to Tracy Austin's career that followed. The only thing they didn't talk about was Virginia Wade and Francoise Durr and maybe they did after I gave up and hit the off button on the remote control.