91Èȱ¬

it's great to hear that 91Èȱ¬ have coverage of his matches! Can you clairfy that all of Andy matches in Grand Slams will be on 91Èȱ¬ even the US Open that is covered by SkySports?

I will watch it all on British Eurosport hehe.

Excellent blog Philip.

I always enjoy the Australian Open, bar Wimbledon its my favourite grand slam and the night sessions are timed ideally for the UK.

I also pleased to see the Women's Final will be played in the night session this year also.

And I'm also very pleased with the commentary team. It had been reported in the press that John Lloyd would be leaving the 91Èȱ¬, he is the best of the co-commentators used on tennis so I'm pleased he will still be part of the team.

Its always nice to hear from Chris Bailey as well since his move down under.

stephen post #1, sorry I think Philip was only referring to Andy Murray's matches in the Australian Open, as you point out Sky Sports have the US Open rights so the 91Èȱ¬ would not be able to show them.

You realise you've doomed him to a first round defeat now you're promoting him to 91Èȱ¬1/2.

Rather than just disrupting the schedules to air his matches though wouldn't it have been better to have 91Èȱ¬i's (sorry, "91Èȱ¬ Press your Red BUtton - no, not that one, that's the off switch!") coverage on 91Èȱ¬1 or 91Èȱ¬2 every morning for the two weeks rather than hidden behind the red button. I'm sure the Beeb could survive a couple of weeks without Bargain Hunt and To Buy or Not to Buy!

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Welcome news - a real shame you're not showing the HD feed on 91Èȱ¬ HD though!

Let's hope you do that for Roland Garros??

Please!!!!!!!!!???????!!!!!!!!!

On 91Èȱ¬2 every day next week, from 8.30am to 11am, every children's programme is a repeat.

An opportunity to get children interested in tennis?

I appreciate that there is going to be a lot of coverage of the Australian Open over the next fortinght - for that well done 91Èȱ¬.

However considering that the 91Èȱ¬ do have the rights could someone explain why there is not daily coverage on terrestrial tv for at least an hour, as is the case with the snooker this week. Even better a round up show perhaps every evening to inform viewers what is going on in the rest of the tournament. It only needs to be about half an hour.

At the moment I still feel the tournament is being a bit hidden away on the red button.

Regarding Steveo77's comments, I think it would be great if the Australian Open was on 91Èȱ¬ One or Two, as I'm a tennis nut. However, I'm not sure there would be enough demand for it (although I hope there would!). I am fine with it being on the Red Button, but I believe if that's the case, there should be TV adverts for it, so that people actually know that it's on the Red Button. Also, it would be good to have 'pop-up' text to say it's on. As far as I know, there have never been TV adverts for any 91Èȱ¬i coverage. Adverts = more viewers = possibility of promoting it to 91Èȱ¬ One/Two.

Two questions about the 91Èȱ¬'s Australian Open coverage:

1. If the start- and finish-times for Murray's matches on 91Èȱ¬ 1/2 are predefined, and he hasn't started by the start-time, or if he finishes before the finish-time, will another live match (or highlights) on his (or any other) court be televised? This was known to happen occasionally in the Henman-days.

2. Is there any chance of Keothavong v Chakvetadze, South v Bartoli, or any other women's matches that won't be on the Rod Laver Arena evening-session being televised?

I would appreciate official answers to these questions, as they will determine how much sleep I get over the coming fortnight!

Aussie Open is a great event and agree should be shown fully on 91Èȱ¬1 or 2 over the 2 weeks, but even saying that most of us now have either red button or internet access so we can all easily choose to watch by flicking Red or turning on the beeb site when we want to.
I also agree more adverts for the event and a highlights show in the evening even tho there is a feed on the Red button too.
But I'll be watching best I can during the 2 weeks to hopefully see a British Winner but the threat of the sack from work will stop me watching during the day :-(

This doesn't quite make up for all the popular sport coverage the 91Èȱ¬ isn't broadcasting but I suppose it helps.

Will the event be shown live fully? i want to see as much tennis as possible... not just murray matches. There are fantasic matches out there that i would like to watch during the night. Watching it via the internet for me would be too much in the way.

I think the 91Èȱ¬ are missing a major point just televising the Murray Matches.
As someone else has pointed out, will we be able to see the British Women espcially Anna and Mel.
But this being the 91Èȱ¬, they wont.
Still having it on the red button is completely stupid...can we have a highlights programe as well?
Im sure John Inverdale can have something to do while there is no 6 Nations Rugger or domestic rugger so why no highlights untill the weekend with Sue?

Really excited about murrays chances and well chuffed that bbc is showing his matches. Can anyone tell me if Laura Robson will be flying the flag in the juniors and if so will there be any coverage of her matches or is she still injured?

are you going to be showing any of the womens matches cuz i seen at lest 1 of them on a show court on the first day?

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Great to see that the 91Èȱ¬ will be showing plenty of the Aussie Open. However unless I have misread are Beeb only showing the night sessions live. Why can't there be any coverage of the day sessions?

you should show the matches on bbc1/2 instead:( they air at midnight onwards, not like there's anything good on then, just repeats.

also why arent murray's matches on 91Èȱ¬HD? and only highlights instead of full matches on red button, that just sucks, i want to watch all the matches not a few highlights and some murray matches. very disappointed, wish sky bought the rights then we'd be able to watch tennis properly then.

also no womens final be aired, WHAT THE HELL! i want to watch that!

yours sincerely,

a disgruntled tennis fan.

A couple of points:

Firstly, can you add a direct link to the Tennis text pages on the (blue) menu please, rather than viewers having to go through the sport home page.

And secondly, the score graphic is so much better bottom left (as the Aussie's have done in recent years) and far less intrusive than the 91Èȱ¬'s preferred option of top left. Could this be looked into for the summer?


And while we're talking tennis, anyone know who is taking over the sponsorship for the Stella Artois Champs at Queens?

Brekkie, the Queen's tournament is now the AEGON Championship, while the new combined ATP/WTA tournament at Eastbourne the following week will be the AEGON International.

Speaking of which, Philip, have the 91Èȱ¬ retained the rights to the new-look Eastbourne event?

PS. I echo the calls for a daily early-evening Australian Open highlights show on 91Èȱ¬2 - even just for the second week, as has been done in the past!

Can someone clarify that 91Èȱ¬i will be showing live coverage of the Rod Laver Arena Night Session tomorrow and not just a repeat of Murray, as this is the coverage that was promised?I am aware Murray's mathces will be looped after the night session but I am concerned about the Live coverage promised by the 91Èȱ¬.

I am confused. They said that coverage would be on the red button. I presumed that to be channel 105. I recorded this channel only to find nothing on it.
Come on 91Èȱ¬ what channel is it on so I can record when at work? I suspect it is 301 ? please help !

The 91Èȱ¬ Sport interactive coverage is always on 301 and 302 on Freeview, never on 105.

In response to some of the above questions:

1. The tennis was on Freeview-channel 301 on Monday, so that's the better guess for timer-record (but beware a possible switch to 302, especially at the weekends).

2. The 91Èȱ¬ doesn't show the day-sessions (with the exception of Murray's matches) because it is unwilling to pay for matches that are played in the middle of the night. The women's semi-finals were televised (recorded, not live) in 2006, but not 2007 or 2008 - please bring them back!

3. My understanding is that Laura Robson's participation in the Girls' Singles is doubtful due to a stomach-injury, but it would be interesting to see whether the 91Èȱ¬ would televise the final if she were to reach it!

4. Eastbourne was mentioned on the "Tennis on the 91Èȱ¬" web-page a couple of weeks ago, but has since disappeared, which makes me pessimistic that it will be televised. Could we please have official confirmation on whether it will be televised or not, and if so, which days of the tournament will be televised?

I've just watched the sports bulletin on the 91Èȱ¬ News Channel, delayed so that the presenters could look at pictures of Washington in the dark and have a giggle.

The tennis coverage started and stopped with Andy Murray. Sean Fletcher seems to think that we, the viewers, are not interested in tennis matches featuring two foreigners; he adopted the same attitude on "Sportsday" last night.

What's wrong with the 91Èȱ¬ News Channel telling us about tennis matches involving foreign players? They still find time to recycle
the previous night's showbiz news and suck up to Barack Obama!

From what I understand tomorrow morning the 91Èȱ¬ will be screening recorded coverage of Novak Djokovic and (dull as Henman) Federer rather than live coverage? Any particular reason?

Also, outside of the 91Èȱ¬'s control and all in hindsight but it's a shame the Gonzalez/Hewitt game wasn't scheduled for prime time Australia considering it's about the only one that hasn't been one sided so far. I think it's perhaps time the number of seeds in grand slams was slashed back down to 16 so the first couple of rounds weren't always such one sided affairs.


And thanks sportsblogger for the news on AEGON - just doesn't have the same ring, does it! I guess the familar red will be ditched too - AEGON seem to favour a rather bland blue on their website.

"The 91Èȱ¬ Sport interactive coverage is always on 301 and 302 on Freeview, never on 105."

Thats fair enough.
But instead of going on about the 'red button" why not say 301/302. I don't know about you , but on my freeview the 'red button' is an actual channel - 105.

I am writing to express my disappointment in the strongest possible terms about the ongoing decisions to show repeats of Australian Open Men's Singles matches on 91Èȱ¬i at 08:30 GMT on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st January 2009 - instead of live coverage of the Women's Singles matches at these times.

Just before the Australian Open began, the 91Èȱ¬ promised live coverage of the Rod Laver Arena evening-sessions at these times, so the decisions to renege on this promise are completely unfair to fans who take their annual leave to watch the 91Èȱ¬'s coverage primarily for women's tennis.

The decision to show repeats of Chardy v Djokovic and Korolev v Federer at 08:30 GMT overrides the Women's Singles match between Jelena Dokic and Anna Chakvetadze, which I (and no doubt many others) had had my heart set on watching since the draw was made. The players and the order-of-play committee have kept up their end of the bargain - please now keep up your end.

There's really no excuse for these reprehensible decisions. Fans who want to watch the men's matches from the Australian day-session have the opportunity to watch them live on 91Èȱ¬i during the night, or to watch one of the endless repeats on 91Èȱ¬i (both before 08:30 GMT, and after live coverage of the evening-session).

Please be reasonable tomorrow, and do not let down fans of women's tennis by reneging on the 91Èȱ¬'s promise to show live coverage of the Rod Laver Arena evening-session. Dokic and Chakvetadze are two of the most talented and attractive stars of the women's game, and we have been waiting since Wimbledon 2004 to see Dokic on the 91Èȱ¬.

Matt Millington, PLEASE could you broadcast the Women's final, semi-finals would be great too, would be much better live on 91Èȱ¬2 for those 3 games. Maybe you could some matches not live eg 9am-3pm or something, show federrer, nadal, ivanovic matches etc, i'm sure it would be alot cheaper to air non-live as most people wont be watching midnight onwards.

Could we not have the murray matches on 91Èȱ¬HD? Even if they arent live, you could show them 3pm-6pm or so. 91Èȱ¬ seem to think uk are only interested in wimbledon, that really isnt true:( As for foreign players we love them, all the best players are foreign, murray is only world number 4, there are no other good uk players.

Is it me or did there used to be 3 or 4 91Èȱ¬i sports channels, seems like on 301 and 302 now, when did this change? gives us less choice of matches to watch which is a shame:(

Will you be posting what time murray matches are on in here as tv guides dont have them listed on 91Èȱ¬1/2 at all like last night, luckily i saw the post in here about it being on at 11.50pm, if i didnt read it here i wouldnt have known at all, wasnt even on bbc sport website. Surely you can make a webpage in the bbc sport tennis section with times and channels of murray matches and update it when information about them changes, would be very helpful.

thanks.

"But instead of going on about the 'red button" why not say 301/302. I don't know about you , but on my freeview the 'red button' is an actual channel - 105."

And on my Sky box it isn't either of those things ... 105 being Channel 5 and 301/302 being Sky movies.

It would appear that which channel corresponds to "the red button" varies from Freeview box to Freeview box, so safer for the 91Èȱ¬ to simply quote "the red button" rather than attempt to list all the possibilities, surely.

I hate this "91Èȱ¬ Red Button" nonsense - 91Èȱ¬i was a much better brand and by the time the 91Èȱ¬ had decided to axe it, everyone knew exactly what it was.

91Èȱ¬ Sport on Freeview is usually on 301, but occassionally 302 hence why it's not been quoted.


And the fact today you've covered a couple of overnight matches shows if you wanted too you could cover one or two overnight games to show after the live session in the morning. It doesn't even have to be with 91Èȱ¬ commentary - surely there is a world feed the 91Èȱ¬ can dip into.

Can someone please explain the reasons why repeats of Australian open men's singles matches were shown on 91Èȱ¬i in the morning on Tue 20th and Wed 21st Jan, instead of live coverage of the matches at these times.

I'm sure I read on the website that live interactove coverage was promised just before the tournament began, so why have you changed your minds?

I'm referring to the Wednesday morning in particular, when the women's singles match between Jelena Dokic (who is now rarely seen on TV) and Anna Chakvetadze was missed, which turned out to be a high-quality and emotional three-set second round encounter.

Fans had every opportunity to watch the highlights you showed at the other times advertised. Do you think we might just get what we've been promised in future? After all, it's only a few hours each day. There's really no reason for to pay my licence fee otherwise.

I think I might invest in Eurosport and watch it that way in future.

Not very happy at all,

Andrew

Philip Bernie:
That is good news the Australian Open will have coverage on the 91Èȱ¬ Platforms...

~Dennis Junior~

If any man can show any just cause why Jelena Dokic v Caroline Wozniacki (first on the Rod Laver Arena evening-session on Friday) may not be televised by the 91Èȱ¬, let him speak now or forever hold his peace!

First of all, thanks for the coverage that is provided, and which is appreciated. The broadcasts on non-Murray days have been great.

I'm a bit confused, though, as to why the Murray v Granollers was shown on both 91Èȱ¬ 2 and the Red Button. Couldn't another match have been shown at that time? It's bad enough that the 91Èȱ¬ has deemed this tournament the Murray Open, when he isn't the defending champion or even top seed. But you compound this by seemingly ignoring almost every other tennis match that is being played. I was pleasantly surprised to see Venus v Suarez Navarro, until I realised that it was only being shown because Murray was on next.

As much as I would like a British champion, I don't think the 91Èȱ¬ needs to adopt such a tubthumping approach, even if it feels the need to justify its coverage in the first place. Please don't continue to lump all of the viewers together by assuming we're only interested in one player. By all means, show Murray on the main 91Èȱ¬ channels, but if possible please use the Red Button for a few of the other matches.

Suárez Navarro v Williams was televised because the 91Èȱ¬ had promised live coverage of all the Rod Laver Arena evening-sessions, although I have no doubt that if Murray's match had been in the day-session, the 91Èȱ¬ would have shown a replay of that instead!

I appreciate that the 91Èȱ¬ showed live Baltacha v Mauresmo at midnight, although it would be nice if this had been advertised more prominently beforehand. It gives me hope for more women's tennis on the 91Èȱ¬ during future Australian Opens in the Laura Robson years!

Re 28.

Further to a previous moan about the sports presenter Sean Fletcher.

The tennis report scheduled for 10.45 on the 91Èȱ¬ News Channel has been kicked into touch so he can talk about Barack Obama!

I've just heard about the 91Èȱ¬'s plans for the Saturday 08:30 GMT coverage.

Why can't you show the Rod Laver Arena evening-session (Stosur v Dementieva) on the Red Button if you're showing Murray v Melzer live on 91Èȱ¬ 1/2 too?

It is clear from the above comments that a significant percentage of 91Èȱ¬-viewers - let's say 50% for the sake of argument - would prefer to watch the women, so please give us that choice instead of wasting two channels on the same match.

To defend the 91Èȱ¬ (yes, I do want something) I think they've only got one commentary team out there.

And now that thing I want - if you do insist on repeating coverage throughout the day on the red button, can you please remove the annoying green "R". You don't have it on delayed coverage of any other sport, so why should tennis be different?

Having a limited number of commentators is no excuse for wasting two channels on the same match. I would be perfectly happy to watch matches without commentary, as is sometimes the case with obscure Wimbledon-matches (doubles and juniors) on the Red Button.

The "R" sign is essential to distinguish recorded coverage from live coverage, and MUST NOT be got rid of, lest people should panic.

One other thing: could the 91Èȱ¬ please get someone who is well-versed in pronunciation of players' names to read out the results-lists? It's usually Chris Bailey who does this, and he makes numerous annoying mistakes!

Sam Smith usually does a better job of pronouncing players' names, but I have yet to hear a British commentator correctly pronounce "Zvonareva" or "Safarova" (these names have diacritical marks that determine the pronunciation, but I had to take them out because this site can't handle diacritical marks, as I found out after posting Comment #40).

Not at all impressed that the 91Èȱ¬'s Saturday coverage did not include so much as a point of women's tennis (the Dokic v Wozniacki handshake was nice, but does not count as a point) - either on the Red Button, 91Èȱ¬ 2's live coverage, or in 91Èȱ¬ 1's highlights-package.

Now that the women are earning equal prize-money at the Majors, they should have equal TV-coverage too!

I am delighted that the 91Èȱ¬ plans to show Dokic v Kleybanova on the Red Button from 08:30 GMT on Sunday morning!

Can the commentators please stop moaning about how late it is! OK, it may not be ideal for them, the player or the crowd (though they seem to be loving it), but it's perfect for us here in the UK on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Beats Bowls and Ice Skating anyday!

So in the likely scenario that Murray v Verdasco will not have started by 04:00 GMT, what will 91Èȱ¬ 2 show in the meantime? Live women's tennis from the Hisense Arena? Live tennis from the Rod Laver Arena? A recording of Robson v McHale?

Roger Mosey, yes tennis is indeed popular, 1.2m viewers for such late/early times is very high indeed just wish some of the other matches could be aired on 91Èȱ¬2, 301 is only 544x576 resolution and lower bitrate looks way worse than 91Èȱ¬2 airings:(

from midnight till about 4am or so on 91Èȱ¬2 on monday there is just news programmes from uk and u.s, those air on 91Èȱ¬ News and CNBC so there's no point in putting them on 91Èȱ¬2 as there are dedicated channels for news, have tennis matches on instead im sure you could even hire tim henman for free to comentate, he's rich enough.

Really hope you put live tennis on at 4am until murray comes on.

If we are waiting up until 4am you should put tennis on red button from midnight till 4am too so we can watch tennis whilst we wait for murray.

Murray's loss is a judgement on the 91Èȱ¬ for showing repeats of his matches instead of live tennis from the Rod Laver Arena evening-session as promised.

Now let's put that nonsense behind us and concentrate on the serious part of the tournament: the Women's Singles, with live coverage on the Red Button of Dokic v Safina from 08:30 GMT on Tuesday.

Let me put in an early request for the 91Èȱ¬ to cover the women's semi-finals in Thursday's day-session. These were shown recorded in 2006, but not televised at all by the 91Èȱ¬ in 2007-2008. That's just not acceptable for the semi-finals of a Major.

Why did FOUR 91Èȱ¬ sports reporters (Matt Gooderick, Nick Hope, Olly Foster and James Munro) queue up to sit in front of a monitor and have a pop at Andy Murray?

And why could none of them manage a report on the other singles matches (eg Blake v Tsonga on the Red Button)?

So the Aussie's finally see sense and move the women's final to the night session, making it a rather UK friendly 8.30am on Saturday - yet you only offer highlights at 1pm.

There is no reason why Breakfast couldn't be cut short and Saturday Kitchen be pushed back to screen it live - and in these days it's live that matters.

The women's final will be live on 91Èȱ¬ Red Button, although that's not much use to analogue-only viewers. Why can't it be live on 91Èȱ¬ 1 or 91Èȱ¬ 2?

I'm very disappointed that the 91Èȱ¬ hasn't announced plans to show the women's semi-finals either live from 02:30 GMT on Thursday morning, or recorded after the evening-session (as in 2006, but not 2007-2008).

After making an exception to show Federer and Djokovic's second-round matches in the day-session of Wednesday 21st January, not to do so for the women's semi-finals is just plain sexist.

It's time to put the "vera" back in "coverage"!

I don't usually have much time for women's tennis but the few matches you've shown this time have really delivered.

The men's tournament meanwhile has been rather disappointing from our point of view as due to the scheduling we've often been left with fairly tedious one sided affairs involving Federer and Nadal.

The Girls' Singles final is on Rod Laver Arena from 02:00 GMT, and has British interest in the form of Laura Robson. Will the 91Èȱ¬ televise this match, live or recorded?

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its a disgrace this isnt on 91Èȱ¬2, i have to watch the final in rubbish 544x576 quality instead of 720x576. You'd have got loads of viewers, matched started at 8.45am on sat morning, perfect time for ppl to watch!

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Not impressed that 91Èȱ¬ 2 didn't stay for the presentation-ceremony. I was only just lucky to switch over to Freeview 302 in time to catch Federer bursting into tears when he tried to make his speech! I hope the bit I missed will be in the repeat...

i missed the presentation ceremony as i recorded 91Èȱ¬2, i'm FURIOUS! i saw some of the ceremony on 302. The match has been repeated yet as i missed the first 20mins, instead of you replayed the womens final twice in a row! replay the mens final instead!

also why is there some sort of musical choir on 301, why not tennis repeats? 302 is snowboarding.

i'm seriously annoyed, that and the fact that no final on 91Èȱ¬HD nor superbowl on 91Èȱ¬HD. I feel let down by our flagship broadcaster!

Please repeat the ENTIRE match including the players walking out into the stadium and practising for 10mins, the whole match AND presentation ceremony, i want to record it to my harddrive for archival.

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meant to say the match *hasn't* been repeated yet, please re-air it on 91Èȱ¬2 late at night or on 301. Maybe even on 91Èȱ¬HD.

why are tennis repeats not including the walk outs and 5mins practise, you learn alot from the commentators talking about their performance this year and see their stats etc, instead the repeats start off with the player serving which is rubbish! No interviews post match are shown either.