Fed's Lack Of Timing Aces Program

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday January 21, 2008

Jake Niall

IN LOS Angeles, the high-ranking sports official was puzzled. The enthralling match he was seeing on ESPN was supposed to be live, but it was 9.25am, Saturday, LA time. It made no sense.

He sent a text message to an American sportswriter and friend who was covering the Australian Open: "When did Hewitt and Baghdatis actually play? It is in the fifth set now and the TV says live but how can that be?"

Four minutes elapsed before the penny dropped on the other side of the Pacific, and the journalist received another text: "Holy shit, it is live."

This match, the latest on record in any major tournament, was played at a time more convenient for American and Cyprian audiences than Australians, and not for the first time. Just 261/2 hours earlier, Andy Roddick had been stunned by Philipp Kohlschreiber, in what was, at that point, hailed as the tournament's epic.

The Roddick match finished at 2.05am, almost as late as the latest match in US Open history, in 1993, when Mats Wilander was more awake and alert than another past-his-prime Swede, Mikael Pernfors. They finished at 2.26am.

In between Roddick and Hewitt was Roger Federer's unexpected four hours, 27 minute victory (10-8 in the fifth set) over Janko Tipsarevic, the catalyst for "Lleytgate".

Yesterday, as the Australian Open officials responsible for scheduling the Hewitt match at 11.49pm defended their contentious call and the Hewitt camp dealt with the fall-out from the 4.33am finish, it was clear the tie - coupled with the Roddick late show the previous night - would have major repercussions for the tournament.

Whatever the officials could have done to ensure a more civilised time - such as marching a reluctant Venus Williams to Vodafone Arena at 8.20pm, instead of Rod Laver Arena, or playing her the next day - reforms of the night tennis sessions seemed inevitable.

Tournament director Craig Tiley sought to spruik the international coverage of the match as a positive. "We had an unbelievable night of tennis that was beamed around the world ... because at the end of the day, the tennis fan, which we all are, had an unbelievable experience." He was right, except that it was at the "end of the night."

Americans, more than Europeans or the quaint English who attend rainy Wimbledon, are accustomed to what we might call "Seven Eleven tennis" and the sport's utter domination by television considerations. The US Open was the trailblazer for night tennis in grand slams.

But even by American standards, the Hewitt v Baghdatis match was considered ludicrous, and it made the US Open - regarded as a boisterous, chaotic slam with its plane noise and New York attitude - seem player- and fan-friendly.

Those with an eye on the big picture noted that Hewitt-Baghdatis was the ultimate, unintended destination for a sport that allows television to dictate who plays when and where. Although the late-night matches drew high ratings, Channel Seven's interests have not been served by its marquee matches stretching so late, beyond a prime-time audience, another reason the night sessions might be handled differently next year.

Very little of Federer's struggle was shown live on Seven, which chose to show it on delay. It began in the afternoon and finished at 9.14pm, eating up the hours that had been designated for Williams-Mirza and Hewitt-Baghdatis.

At last year's Open a first-round match few remember finished at 3.34am. As Oscar Wilde put it, it is better to be talked about than not at all.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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