Albert, Carillo, Courier Usher in New Era of Wimbledon Coverage
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."
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The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of this magazine.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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