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by Christopher Gerby After a long run on HBO, Wimbledon makes its American basic cable debut this year. The bidding war for coverage was won by Turner Sports, which will air 61 hours of the tournament on TNT and another 28 on CNN-SI. The commentary team includes a few holdovers from HBO (Mary Carillo, Martina Navratilova, and Barry MacKay); a pair of newcomers to tennis announcing (Marv Albert and Jim Courier); and a CNN veteran (Jim Huber, who will apparently be filing reports from around the grounds the way Frank Deford did for HBO). Carillo, Courier, and Albert all took part in a 50-minute conference call with reporters on June 21st. Navratilova was also scheduled to participate, but was tied up with the resumption of her first round doubles match in Eastbourne. Turner Sports producer Howard Zalkowitz got things underway with some opening remarks, including a wish to "bring beginner's luck to the All England Club" in the form of a "rain-free fortnight." Zalkowitz went on to praise each member of the broadcast team and stressed his belief that "storytelling is of primary importance" in the coverage of a tennis event. He also went out of his way to hype Anna Kournikova, who's likely to be a major focus of the coverage for as long as she's in the singles draw. "Her record speaks for herself," Zalkowitz said, referring to Kournikova's career mark of 8-2 at Wimbledon. "She's a legitimate threat to go far in this tournament." The producer took a few questions regarding the technical specifics of this year's coverage. They will mainly use the BBC feed, there won't be a live score box constantly present in the corner of the screen, and there most certainly will be commercials. The rest of the conference call was dominated by the announcers and their thoughts on this year's tournament. Carillo was her enthusiastic, entertaining self, often jumping in with a "Carillo here" before reeling off some eloquently colloquial take on the star players. She sees Pete Sampras as the prohibitive favorite on the men's side. "It doesn't matter how rotten his clay court season is...he can dust himself off and still be the man." She next referred to Andre Agassi as "the bald guy" and said he's "a big question mark going in." Meanwhile, Carillo sees nothing but question marks in the relatively wide open women's field, particulary in the form of the Williams sisters. "Who the hell knows what they're gonna bring?" Courier, the opinionated Davis Cup stalwart who recently retired from the ATP Tour, mostly agreed. He pointed to defending champion Lindsay Davenport as one high seed who could be in trouble. "If you've got back problems goin' in, they're not gonna get better over the fortnight." He sees Hingis and Sampras as the favorites, saying of Pete, "If you don't catch him early, you're probably not gonna get him." As potential darkhorses go, Carillo's first pick was Patrick Rafter, while Courier favors Yevgeny Kafelnikov. They both said Tim Henman must be relegated to dark horse status this year, as he comes into the tournament following grass court losses to Bob Bryan and Jonas Bjorkman. "That's ugly," Courier said of Henman's Wimbledon draw, which sees him facing Paradorn Srichaphan in the first round, potentially followed by Goran Ivanisevic in the second and Hicham Arazi in the third. Courier butchered the prounciation of Srichaphan, but the fact that he's familiar with the young Thai's game bodes well for his ability to contribute from the booth. Marv Albert vouched for his new partner's chops. "This past Monday night, Jim made a sensational debut on MSG SportsDesk (a show Albert hosts), which all sports fans know is the true barometer." All kidding aside, Albert and Courier both said they view covering Wimbledon as a welcome challenge. Marv has prepared by "watching tapes of tennis for the past two months" and says he's a long-time fan of the sport, going back to his days attending the U.S. Open at Forest Hills. As for his commentary style, the notoriously blustery play-by-play man is planning "a laid back type approach...you're not gonna hear `Yesss! It's an ace!'" It may take a while for Albert and Courier to comfortably settle into their new job, just as it may take fans of HBO's coverage some time to accept the TNT version. However, as Zalkowitz said, the "window-dressing" (such as the music and graphics packages TNT has poured quite a bit of time and money into) is ultimately less important than the tennis itself. Exciting matches are the key and Carillo sees the potential for many of them, even on the men's side, where she feels grass court tennis has gotten a bit of a bad rap. "If it was all about the serve," Mary declared, "Goran Ivanisevic would have won 47 Wimbledons by now." |