Tennis Chatter

Today’s headlines in the tennis world are dominated by MORE rain at the All England Club, and NBC’s Bud Collin’s being let go after 35 years of tennis commentating. Wimbledon match scheduling is going to be tight this week with only a few matches being completed today. Henin advanced to quarterfinals today with her win over P. Schnyder 6-2, 6-2. This wasn’t a pretty match with both players hitting more unforced errors than winners. Henin will face Serena Williams in quarterfinals. Serena had a three set win over D. Hantuchova today, 6-2, 6-7, 6-2.

L. Granville’s Wimbledon run ended today when she lost to M. Krajicek 6-3, 6-4. Krajicek hit 41 winners to only 18 unforced errors. Venus Williams finished her rain suspended match today with a win over A. Morigami 6-2, 3-6, 7-5. She plays Sharapova in her fourth round match. I think Sharapova wins this, unless Venus is absolutely on-fire (which she hasn’t been so far this tournament).

On the men’s side of the draw, M. Baghdatis advanced easily over D. Nalbanian 6-2, 7-5, 6-0. Baghdatis has a great chance of making quarterfinals, as he will likely play Davydenko next round (he leads Monfils 6-3, 7-5, 6-0). Davydenko has historically been very weak on grass, despite his (career best) showing this year.

Things are shaping up in Nadal’s section of the draw. T. Berdych defeated H. Lee 6-4, 7-6, 7-6. He plays J. Bjorkman in his fourth round match. Bjorkman was a quarterfinalist last year, but I think Berdych takes this match. Berdych has been coming into form on grass lately, with his title at Halle. Finally, Nadal is in a tight one with R. Soderling, at 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 4-6, 2-0. Nadal has the advantage in the fifth set, being up a break. The winner will play M. Youzhny.

It was announced today that Bud Collins has been fired after 35 years of tennis commentary for NBC. NBC stated that it was a “management decision to save money.” Collins doesn’t harbor an resentment, he was quoted saying:

“So I had 35 great years with them,�?

“I have no complaints about them, but I hope to stay in tennis. “I’m not retiring; too young to retire.�?

I’m kind of split on how I stand on this issue. There are a lot of articles on blogs around the net saying this is a travesty (Link 1, Link 2), but I don’t really agree. I thought Collins was an interesting personality, and sometimes had an interesting word on tennis, but overall his coverage wasn’t spectacular. He fits NBC’s strategy of appealing to Americans who know very little about tennis (as evidenced by them showing only mainstream tennis players), and for reason he is a loss. He was a well recognized commentator, who brought a lot of attention to tennis, in the 80s and 90s. However, everything he writes at MSNBC.com is about Venus, Serena, Roddick, Federer, Nadal, or Sharapova (as I wrote about here). It would be great if NBC was firing him to bring in some new analysts who would shed light on the entire field, but I’m sure they’re not. He probably just didn’t fit with their image, and for that reason they let him go. Overall, in my view, it’s an acceptable firing, for the wrong reason. NBC’s coverage does need to be overhauled, but this wasn’t it. They’ve been fazing Collin’s out for a while (he stopped doing in-match commentary a while ago), and now it’s complete. Just don’t expect any radical change with his departure. When you turn on your television, you’ll still see some Roddick match from several hours ago being replayed, even if there is a more exciting live match between Djokovic and Kiefer.