McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 21st May 2013

McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport

epa03307513 Former US tennis great John McEnroe reacts during his match against Michael Stich of Germany 15 July 2012 in Hamburg during the 'Match of the Legends'. A total of 32 professional tennis players participate in the ATP World Tour 500 untill 22 July 2012. EPA/Angelika Warmuth |

John McEnroe is paid plenty of money to commentate for the Tennis Channel at the French Open, but he seems to enjoy his work with the network. Tennis Channel is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and will help broadcast Roland Garros for the seventh time.

“The French brings back some great memories and some painful ones for me personally, just the playing part,” McEnroe said.” It’s an incredibly beautiful city. Sometimes I imagine my losses, particularly the [1984] one to [Ivan Lendl.” Having said that, Tennis Channel is important for our sport, something that I’ve been happy and proud to be a part of because they’ve really made a push to sort of make our sport relevant and exciting, not only to the hardcore fan but more of an everyday sports fans. The commitment to an all‑tennis network to me is something that people should be rallying behind. That’s why I have been doing the French Open since they first started covering it.”

The seven-time Grand Slam champion, who has worked for a slew of other networks including NBC, CBS and ESPN, believes that Tennis Channel is a key part of the success of the sport. Tennis Channel is currently in involved in a court battle with cable giant Comcast, which could make or break it in the long run.

“As far as being able to have access to a lot of tennis, if you’re a tennis junky, it’s amazing,” McEnroe said. “You can watch events that we could never possibly see before. You can turn it on, watch Barcelona, Rome, Madrid. It’s like being able to do your homework while watching tennis tournaments all over the world. I think it’s unbelievable there’s that type of ability to do that. Hopefully we’ll be able to use that to our advantage as we move forward, ‘we’ the sport.”

McEnroe never won Roland Garros, but he did go deep there in 1984, blowing a two sets to one lead over Lendl in the final in a match he calls the biggest choke of his career. He believes the tournament’s approach to preparing its red clay has changed a bit, possibly for the better.

“For an aggressive player like myself, it became difficult to defend well‑struck passing shots,” he said. “That’s why you see less players moving forward on clay. To be honest, you see less players moving forward, period. So in a way the game has become more homogenized in the sense that the courts play more similarly than they ever have. If you look at Wimbledon, it’s clearly slowed down. The bounce is truer. At the French, they seemed to try to do the opposite, which is try to speed it up. The balls have seemed generally to fly more than they have in the past. The court is not watered as often. Obviously conditions dictate to some extent what they do, the grounds people. In my day they were watering the courts virtually after every set, and they don’t do that now. May go through a whole match or two or three sets. Generally the rallies are shorter, more similar to what you see at other surfaces.”

What McEnroe has grown to love about clay court tennis is watching modern players slide into shots and seeing them smack balls back effectively. That has transferred to hard courts, where players like No. 1 Novak Djokovic are willing to slide on cement. McEnroe believes that various fan bases take to different types of styles as well as matches. Clay court contests tend to go longer, but perhaps they don’t go quite as long as they used to.

“Fans are content to wait and see how things develop; things don’t have to happen as fast,” he said. “Here in America, maybe more fast‑paced like the [US] Open where people expect more aggressiveness. So it’s really a matter of taste in a way. In the other major sports, like basketball, I always make the comparison that the game would be far different if they were to play on clay, as well. They would be unable to make the type of quick moves that you see them do so easily on a wood surface. `So it’s a give‑and‑take. I think in some way tennis players are underappreciated because they play on three different surfaces, which can be rather difficult. It has been helped by the fact that they’ve seemed to be more similar than they’ve ever been.”

Tennis Channel will begin its first day of 2013 French Open coverage with nine consecutive hours of matches followed by a another nine hours of interview-and-encore show French Open Tonight. With plans for close to 70 live match hours, more than 65 hours of encore replays, and 114 hours of French Open Tonight, Tennis Channel will devote more than 200 hours to the world’s most prestigious clay-court event this year.

The network’s most common daily schedule will offer live matches from 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. ET. From 3:30 p.m.-7 p.m. it will showcase the day’s best action via encore match replays, regardless of whether the matches originally aired live on Tennis Channel or broadcast partners NBC or ESPN2 (a complete schedule follows, below).

French Open Tonight, hosted by Bill Macatee will run from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. and then again twice throughout the late night and early morning.

In addition to Macatee and McEnroe, the Channel will bring back analysts Martina Navratilova, Lindsay Davenport, Justin Gimelstob and Rennae Stubbs. Leif Shiras, Katrina Adams and Mary Carillo will host the network’s live tournament desk and conduct interviews for the third consecutive year. Play-by-play responsibilities will again be shared by Ted Robinson, Ian Eagle and Brett Haber.

Follow 10SBALLS.COM on:

Facebook:

Twitter:

TennisChannelPR says:

May 21, 2013 at 4:30 pm

RT @10sBalls_com: McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport: John McEnroe is paid plenty of money to commentate for t… http://t.co/vq…
TennisChannel says:

May 21, 2013 at 4:32 pm

RT @10sBalls_com: McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport: John McEnroe is paid plenty of money to commentate for t… http://t.co/vq…
Rafafan2401 says:

May 23, 2013 at 5:48 am

RT @10sBalls_com: McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport: John McEnroe is paid plenty of money to commentate for t… http://t.co/vq…
Fortuitas says:

May 25, 2013 at 8:33 am

RT @10sBalls_com: McEnroe Sees Tennis Channel As Vital To Sport: John McEnroe is paid plenty of money to commentate for t… http://t.co/vq…