Well, STIRR TV was a bust. I’m not sure what version of Tennis Channel they have, but it always keeps showing stuff like last year’s men’s and women’s French Open final. It’s supposed to be showing the French Open live right now on Tennis Channel, but the one on STIRR is once again showing the 2018 Men’s Final instead.
Apparently there is one other options for getting the Tennis Channel: FuboTV in the U.S. is apparently a streaming service that I hadn’t heard about until now. I just signed up for a 7 day free trial. Expensive as hell though. $55 a month is their cheapest option, and it doesn’t say whether it includes the Tennis Channel or not. I guess I’ll choose that and find out.
EDIT: Ok, I signed up for the base $55 package, and sure enough, after fumbling with the poorly designed app for a long time, I found the 95 channels I got didn’t include the Tennis Channel. I had to back to their website and find the extra sports plus add-on for another $9, which added the channel. But hey, at least, it’s showing on my phone now. It’s very clear, great sound, great picture, so it’s already making a better impression than SlingTV. They also have DVR, so I can theoretically record this and watch later too, which again, is not something you can do on SlingTV with any Disney-owned channel (i.e. I can’t do it for ESPN and all their tennis tournaments throughout the year).
Since they don’t have the rights to broadcast the French Open in the U.S., I’m curious, does ESPN still deploy their full tennis coverage team? Patrick McEnroe, John McEnroe, Brad Gilbert, Pam Shriver, etc.?
Did you ever try the ATP’s streaming service? I like it. You can’t get the slams, of course, but you can get all the other tournaments, including a lot of the 250-level ones that don’t ever make it on to ESPN. I put the app on my Fire TV box, and it seems to work great.
I’ve never seen one of those smaller tournaments in the 35 years I’ve been a Tennis fan. Back in the 80s I only had access to the slams. In the 90s, I watched some of the tournaments shown by ESPN that weren’t slams, but mostly I missed those since I never knew when one was on. Same in the 2000s. And then in the 2010s, I cut the cord and only got ESPN for the slams.
I’m trying to think of what circumstances I’d want to watch the really small tournaments that are not even on ESPN. I used to live in Qatar, and after I left, they started holding an ATP tournament there. I suppose I’d be interested in watching that, only because of my personal connection with the place. I guess I’m not a big enough Tennis fan to want to see the other tournaments. When I did occasionally catch one of the ones on ESPN, I just remember being really annoyed that they played best of 3 sets instead of best of 5.
The worst part of Tennis Channel’s coverage is, unfortunately, the commentary. When you get Martina Navratilova as the color commentator, you’re guaranteed to put the audience to sleep. She was a great player, but commentary is not her thing.
The problem with ESPN Latin America coverage is their (understandable) preference for Latin American players. The other problem is that, for some reason, they suppress the sound volume coming from the court and talk a lot, so you can’t hear the ball strikes or the players, etc. At the end of the Del Potro match they talked about it for 20 minutes or more before switching to show the ongoing Millman / Zverev match.
We’re switching back and forth between ESPN, Tennis Channel and British EuroSport (the latter two via TVTAPNow) to try to get good coverage. The picture is best on ESPN, of course, but the best commentary is on British Eurosport.
This Ostapenko-Azarenka match is great. I love it when two champion caliber players meet in the first round. It used to happen a lot more on the men’s side too back in the day, but at least it still happens on the women’s side.
I wish they would update us on what’s happening in the 5th set in the Zverev Millman match though.
My pure fan fantasy outcome in this French Open that will never actually happen: that this generation of French player that never won a major make a huge surge and make it an all French semifinal. The likes of Tsonga, Monfils, Gasquet, Simon. I’m sure there are others that I’m forgetting.
I’ve always liked those guys too. I see why Simon, Gasquet, and Monfils never won a slam—the former two not good enough, the latter not steady/consistent enough. Tsonga’s a different story. He had multiple weapons (serve, forehand, good at the net and willing to come in), gave the big three fits as much as anyone, and, unlike his compatriots, was able to win big tournaments (two Masters titles). Like del Potro, a combination of injuries and playing alongside Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic took their toll on him. He won a tournament earlier this year, but has never really been the same since his last injury. Him, Ferrer, Soderling, and Davydenko are the guys from this past era I felt deserved to win a slam but never did. Tennis is cruel sometimes. Just ask Roddick.
The problem with winning a major in the era of the Big Four is that you probably had to beat two of them in a given tournament. And for the most part, all four were better than anyone else. So it was a tall order.
I see Monfils in the same way I see Fognini: Two guys with tremendous talent, able to do really anything they want on a tennis court, but who just didn’t care enough about winning to do the hard work to climb to the top. Fognini seems to have found some purpose and drive now, but it is probably too late for him. Still, I’m thrilled to see him winning, and I’m happy whenever either of them wins.
Dellien rolled his ankle late in the first set but still managed to win it. He had poor mobility in the second and third, but continuing to play has freed up his movement and he is back in it in the fourth. He was up a break but lost it, now he’s fighting to hold at 4-5.
I googled that, it sounds more friendly than you’re making it sound. It’s the sort of thing that gets blasted by clickbait headlines and make a big deal about a small comment.
