[NB Josh]

I don't mind the McEnroe brothers, at least when they aren't covering Americans. Brad Gilbert is the most annoying tennis commentator I've ever heard.

Most of the play by plays in tennis aren't bad, Drysdale, Dick Enberg, Chris Fowler and Ted Robinson are all good. Its the analysts that get me, especially Gilbert and Pam Shriver.

For anyone who missed it, yesterday Shriver asked a Canadian (can't remember her name right now) who was about to play Venus Williams this question, "Its close to 100 degrees out there, I bet it never gets this warm in Canada?" The Canadian, who lives in Montreal where it was also close to 100 yesterday, just nervously laughed and said "yeah" or something to that effect. Now Shriver must have played in Montreal or Toronto at some point in her career, or at least covered one of the events for ESPN. It was simply ignorant on her part to say what she said.

 

[NB Josh]

It doesn't cost TSN anything to get the ESPN2 feed. ESPN owns a stake in TSN and TSN pulls in ESPN2 on satellite at all times anyway. In order to get the BBC feed TSN would have to buy satellite time to bring the BBC feed over.

TSN will be using the international feed on Saturday and Sunday night because Tennis Channel will have coverage in the US (ESPN2 has college football and Sunday Night Baseball). Basically TSN uses ESPN2 for the US, Australian and Wimbledon because ESPN2 are the primary rightsholder and they have live coverage most of, if not all day. However, for the French Tennis Channel is the primary rightsholder, so they have live coverage from 5am-noon ET, while ESPN2 takes over from noon-6 with some live coverage, but mostly taped coverage.

 

[NB Josh]

It would be a great addition. TSN's coverage of the Masters Series is not great, so if the Tennis Channel could air their coverage too, it would be a welcome addition. Same for WTA events, which outside of the Rogers Cup we don't get any. Of course the 3 Grand Slams that they air would probably be blacked out.

My guess is that we get Speed and Golf because they have been around for a while. Tennis Channel is still relatively new. It would be a welcome addition in my books though.

 

[NB Josh]

This is only the 3rd time I can ever remember TSN using Tennis Channel coverage. The other two were the 2010 Australian Open men's doubles final and an exhibition match between Federer and Sampras at MSG a couple years ago.

I wish they would start using it for ATP Masters events too.