NAVRATILOVA, COURIER, DAVENPORT NAME FAVORITE MATCHES OF YEAR AHEAD

Written by: Staff on 29th November 2011

NAVRATILOVA, COURIER, DAVENPORT NAME FAVORITE MATCHES OF YEAR AHEAD |

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 29, 2011 – As Tennis Channel prepares for its annual viewer countdown of the network’s best matches of the year in December, three members of its on-air talent team have weighed in with their own favorite matches of 2011. Primary Grand Slam commentator Martina Navratilova, US Open analyst Jim Courier, and US Open Tonight host and network analyst Lindsay Davenport revealed their top competitions of 2011, three memorable, different Grand Slam moments in a year that proved to be historic.

In early November Tennis Channel asked its viewers to visit www.tennischannel.com and vote for their favorite matches of the past tennis season. The result is LOVE 30: 30 Matches in 30 Days, encore presentations of the top 30 matches of 2011, counted down from No. 30 on Thursday, Dec. 1 to No. 1 on Friday, Dec. 30. Each night at 8 p.m. ET Tennis Channel will air the match of the day, according to where it ranked with viewers, a month of top-caliber competition during the holiday season.

When asked about her favorite match of 2011, Hall of Famer Navratilova picked the US Open women’s final, in which Australian Sam Stosur pulled off a surprising win over American Serena Williams. Courier’s preference, on the other hand, was the French Open semifinal between Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Switzerland’s Roger Federer, with the former’s year-long undefeated streak on the line. Davenport noted the first Wimbledon crown for Czech Petra Kvitova against Russian Maria Sharapova, known as one of the toughest competitors in the professional circuit. (Quotes about these matches from Tennis Channel talent follow, below.)

Tennis Channel is also treating clay-court, grass-court and hard-court fans to surface-related theme weeks throughout December, running the best matches based on a particular court surface every day from 6 a.m. through 5 p.m. ET. The theme weeks are: Outdoor Hard Court – Dec. 5-11, Clay Court – Dec. 12-18, Grass Court – Dec. 19-25 and Indoor Hard Court – Dec. 26-Jan 1.

In addition to voting for their favorite matches on Tennis Channel this year, online visitors had the opportunity to weigh in on the Biggest Storyline of 2011 as well. More than half of the participants voted Djokovic’s accomplishment (his early winning streak, advance to the No. 1 singles ranking and collection of three Grand Slam singles titles) as the top event, with 50.55 percent of the respondents favoring the Serb’s history-making season. Voters also ranked these events as part of the top five this year (percentage of viewers who ranked the event first in parentheses):

Roger Federer does not win a Grand Slam title for the first time since 2002 (36.6 percent)

Li Na becomes the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam singles title (6 percent)

Serena Williams has an angry meltdown at the US Open (3.66 percent)

Mardy Fish passes Andy Roddick as the top-ranked American singles player (3.19 percent)

Topics: Atp, Courier, Davenport, Navratilova, Stosur, Tennis Channel