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Barbara Schett previews the 2021 Australian Open

6 February 2021

Eurosport tennis expert and former world number seven Barbara Schett previews the 2021 Australian Open.

On Grand Slam tennis returning…

I think we can all be happy there is a Grand Slam happening in Melbourne, because we need tennis, we need live tennis, the players need to play, it’s their job – I think it’s amazing that Tennis Australia has pushed it through and that it is happening.

On the return of tennis…

Yes! I have missed it and I was worried it was not going to happen. But that’s where it is even more important where everyone in the tennis community just need to be thankful that there is a tennis tournament because we are in the middle of a pandemic and it’s not that easy to organise a tournament and make it happen. We should grateful there is tennis and it’s going to be great.

On who is the favourite for the women’s title…

I think Ash Barty is the player to look out for, she has been in Australia for a whole year, she is rested, she hasn’t had to go through quarantine, she has been practising on that surface for such a long time. She is used to the heat, she knows how to win a Grand Slam event which is definitely a bonus for her. We will see, she obviously hasn’t played any matches, so that’s got to be interesting to see how she goes in matches. I think it’ll be a big advantage for Ash Barty compared to all the other players who, like Azarenka, who have had to go through a complete two-week quarantine in a hotel and can’t get out. I think Ash Barty, the Naomi Osaka, there are a few girls. What about Swiatek – she won Roland-Garros, she’s definitely capable. If you have to go through a two-week quarantine it’s going to be very hard if you can’t go out because you can train as much as you want in the hotel room – but you go out and it’s 35c, you haven’t hit a ball, you haven’t had any fresh air, you just need time to adjust. You will lose a little fitness for sure.

On Serena Williams…

We’ been talking about Serena Williams for the last few years now, we were always thinking it’s not so far away and she will win the next title for sure, go level with Margaret Court – we all want to see that, but I think she has just been getting nervous in the final stages of the Grand Slam tournaments. Now, it’s probably an advantage for her, she never usually plays a lot of tournaments leading in to a Slam, and now no one has played a lot of tournaments in the last year so maybe it’s more even for her going into this Australian Open. You can never write Serena off, she has got the biggest serve in women’s tennis and she is so powerful – if she gets on top, plays aggressive tennis then no one can really stop her. It will be interesting to see how all of the players handle it mentally as well as physically because this is a position no one has ever been in.

On Serena Williams winning a 24th Grand Slam title…

Serena wants to win another Grand Slam title, she is highly motivated, I can’t believe she is still out there at 39 playing the way she plays and competing for Grand Slam titles – it’s not that she wins a couple of matches, she is still going deep in Grand Slam tournaments. I thought it was a great effort four years ago, but if someone said Serena would still be playing at 39 I would have said “no chance, this is impossible”. I retired when I was 28 I thought it was too old. Where does she get the motivation from? That’s what is astonishing to me. I think she wants to prove to everyone that she is the best ever, and I think she should go down in the history books as the best ever I think.

On which players to look out for in 2021…

It sounds boring but I’m excited to see Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic compete. Obviously Dominic Thiem. The men’s side is very exciting, Nick Kyrgios will be in action again, he’s always someone to look forward to watch especially in Australia. When will Roger Federer play again? That’s another good question. On the women’s side, will there be another Grand Slam champion? We’ve had so many over the past few years? Will Iga Swiatek be able to back it up? It’s extremely exciting. I’m looking forward to it and to see how all the players are handling the current situation.

On working in television…

To work in television was always an ambition – I started with Eurosport 15 years ago, I thought this is great and this what I want to do. If someone told me 15 years ago that I would be standing in the Cube, alone, basically going to be an anchor for the tennis I would have taken it all day. Time has flown in the last 15 years. I started with Eurosport with 6 or 7 people at Grand Slams, now we usually have 120 people at a live event. I love it, and I hope I can be with Eurosport for another 15 years. I love tennis, I love my team – they are my family now.

On working in the Cube…

When I was asked to come to London last year to work in the Cube, my expectations were different. I was thinking how are they going to teleport players in? How does that work? We only have two LED walls? I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like. When I was there, I saw the outcome, I thought this is really, really cool – how futuristic are we? Nobody else was using the technology like we did. I was very honoured to be in the Cube using all this new technology. It was perfect for these difficult times when we couldn’t be on-site – the players looked like they were standing next to me. It’s been amazing and the response from all of the world has been amazing. Very innovative.

Barbara Schett will anchor Eurosport's coverage of the Australian Open from the Cube studio. Watch the Australian Open live on Eurosport from Monday 8 February.

Judy Murray interviews the biggest names in sport on discrimination and other challenges faced for new Sky Sports docuseries

12 November 2020

Driving Force series set to explore stories of success, discrimination and achieving the impossible in sport.

Airing on Sky Sports from 24th November 2020, Driving Force, led by Judy Murray OBE, is an 11-part docuseries exploring the making of 10 legendary female athletes and the driving forces behind their success.

Exclusive to Sky Sports, the series aims to shine a light on inequality and other challenges in sport, with a view to calling out, educating and highlighting the need for change for future generations.

Back in 2017 Sir Andy Murray OBE went viral for correcting a journalist in a post-match press conference. He was praised for highlighting casual sexism and the battle professional female athletes face. With these issues still relevant today, the first episode looks at the driving force behind the series and Andy himself, his mother, Judy.

In the episodes that follow, distinguished athletes lay their stories bare unveiling both the negative and positive sides of professional sport. The team investigate topics such as physical training extremes, sexism and discrimination, coaching and the importance of mental health. Alongside these important topics, Judy delves deep into what makes these athletes tick.

Among the athletes and contributors featured are Billie Jean King, Sir Andy Murray OBE and Jamie Murray OBE, Dina Asher-Smith, Martina Navratilova, Steph Houghton MBE, Graziano Pellè, Katie Taylor and Jamie and Harry Redknapp.

Rob Webster, Managing Director of Sky Sports said: “Sky Sports made the commitment back in March 2020 to invest in more original women’s sport content and programming. Driving Force is a great example of how Sky Sports can use its voice to bring important sporting stories to new audiences with the ambition of raising awareness around the challenges female athletes face, for both existing and future generations. We want to bring to life stories we know viewers will love, but that will also ultimately drive change within sport.”

Judy Murray OBE said: “Driving Force tells the backstory of some of our most successful sportswomen – discovering who and what inspired them and helped them to the top of their game. We explore their journeys and feature the highs, the lows and the curve balls. It’s a fascinating watch and will raise awareness not just of their incredible achievements but also of the issues and challenges that still exist for women in sport.”

The first episode of Driving Force will be available on Tuesday 24 November on Sky Sports Mix at 9pm and Sky Sports Main Event at 10:15pm. It will also be available On Demand via Sky and NOW TV.

Episode guide:

Ep 1. Judy Murray OBE: Episode 1 looks at the driving force behind Judy herself, her career and why she won’t take no for an answer.

Ep 2. Steph Houghton MBE: Episode 2 with Steph Houghton examines the responsibility of becoming captain, the importance of family and how to stay true to yourself.

Ep 3. Victoria Pendleton CBE: Episode 3 with Victoria Pendleton explores how to overcome setbacks, quiet determination and what it takes to succeed.

Ep 4. Dina Asher-Smith: Episode 4 with Dina Asher-Smith takes a look at the power of visibility within sport, feeling invincible and really hard work.

Ep 5. Natasha Jonas: Episode 5 with Natasha Jonas talks about respect, supporting others and the mindset needed to be the best.

Ep 6. Charlotte Dujardin CBE: Episode 6 with Charlotte Dujardin explores unexpected success, pushing boundaries and keeping her cool during competition time.

Ep 7. Rebecca Adlington CBE: Episode 7 with Rebecca Adlington highlights the importance of a support network, sports psychology and becoming a champion.

Ep 8. Dame Sarah Storey DBE: Episode 8 with Sarah Storey on training, falling in love and dealing with the unexpected.

Ep 9. Dame Kelly Holmes DBE: Episode 9 with Kelly Holmes delves into fighting injury battles, mental health and the price of success.

Ep 10. Christine Ohuruogu MBE: Episode 10 with Christine Ohuruogu on harsh realisations, learning to adapt and what it takes to win.

Ep 11. Katie Taylor: Episode 11 with Katie Taylor offers a rare glimpse into her life in the spotlight, what makes her tick and the pressures of staying at the top of her game.

Driving Force is partnering with leading youth homelessness charity Centrepoint which supports 15,000 vulnerable young people a year by providing accommodation, teaching valuable life skills, tackling their physical and mental health issues and working with them to get them into education or employment.

Eurosport taking Roland-Garros coverage to new heights

22 September 2020

  • Every court, every match LIVE on Eurosport and Eurosport Player from Monday 21 September with qualification tournament

  • The Eurosport Cube returns

  • McEnroe and Evert back to join Eurosport’s team of experts

  • Extensive linear and digital coverage on and off the court will ensure fans get a true 360-degree Roland-Garros experience

Live sport on Eurosport never stops during September and October as Grand Slam tennis returns to Europe.

After an extraordinary US Open tournament in New York, all eyes now turn to Roland-Garros as the best players in the world battle it out on the clay courts of Paris. Eurosport will be there for every shot with every court and every match available live across Europe.

Three hundred hours of live coverage from the main tournament begins from Sunday 27 September. Ten courts from the qualification tournament, meanwhile, will be screened in over 50 countries and territories on Eurosport 2 and Eurosport Player.

Roland-Garros will see the Eurosport Cube – the innovative mixed-reality studio labelled ‘the future of sports broadcasting’ – activated once again following praise from fans and the industry alike during Eurosport’s coverage of the recent US Open. An immersive virtual studio that remotely connects the players with guests, hosts and experts from anywhere in the world, the Cube brings to life the most in-depth analysis and visualisation of sporting action transporting fans even closer to the action.

Stars such as Novak Djokovic, Karolina Pliskova, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Naomi Osaka were all beamed into the Eurosport Cube from New York to analyse their performances during coverage of the US Open.

Two tennis icons, with 25 Grand Slam singles titles between them, also make a return to Eurosport screens for Roland-Garros. John McEnroe and Chris Evert are back to offer their candid opinions and analysis to millions of fans across Europe throughout the two weeks of the main competition.

McEnroe and Evert join Mats Wilander and Barbara Schett on Eurosport’s brilliant team of experts, with the latter anchoring international coverage from the Cube in London. Boris Becker and Alex Corretja will also be beamed into the Eurosport Cube studio in London directly from their locations in Munich and Madrid respectively to give their own expert perspective from the best of the men’s and women’s matches during Roland-Garros.

Legendary tennis expert Mats Wilander, who has worked with Eurosport since 2007, said: “Eurosport is always looking to push the boundaries with new technology to help fans really feel like they’re at the centre of the action. While we’d all love to be in Paris, it’s incredibly exciting be able to talk to the players face-to-face in the Eurosport Cube and have those direct post-match conversations which tap into the emotion of the match and gets to the heart of the reasons for winning or losing.”

The popular Tennis Legends podcast, hosted by Wilander, will also return for Roland-Garros boasting some very special guests. With these formats, coupled with live reporting and opinion pieces on Eurosport’s digital platforms, Eurosport will truly offer a 360-degree vantage point of the tournament as it happens.

Eurosport will have local coverage windows in the United Kingdom, highlighting its commitment to telling local stories, in the lead-up to, and during, Roland-Garros.

After successfully introducing event-based commentary for the US Open, Eurosport will replicate this once again but with the addition of the UK for the very first time. There will be full production for the three main show courts with the ability for local language commentary from up to 13 courts in total, meaning viewers watching on Eurosport Player will have the best possible viewing experience.

Key dates:

  • Monday 21 September – Qualifying tournament begins

  • Sunday 27 September – Main tournament begins

  • Saturday 10 October – Women’s singles final

  • Sunday 11 October – Men’s singles final

Amazon Prime Video brings global tennis back to fans in UK & Ireland this summer

4 August 2020

  • Tennis returns to screens on Prime Video this August with the start of the WTA tour from 3 August, ATP tour from 22 August, and US Open from 31 August to 13 September

  • Catherine Whitaker, Marcus Buckland, Greg Rusedski, Daniela Hantuchova, Tim Henman, Annabel Croft, Sam Smith, Mark Petchey, Robbie Koenig and Nick Lester return as Prime Video’s presenting, analysis and commentary team for the remainder of the season

  • Laura Robson, Anne Keothavong and Radzi Chinyanganya join the presenting and commentary team for the US Open

  • Prime Video offers the best in men’s and women’s tennis all in one place, at no extra cost to a Prime membership

This Summer, Amazon Prime Video brings much-awaited live global tennis back to fans in the UK and Ireland. Beginning with the WTA tour; 31st Palermo Ladies Open from 3 August, the WTA and ATP tour; Western & Southern Open, New York from 22 August, and the US Open Grand Slam from 31 August to 13 September, Prime Video is giving customers access to the top men’s and women’s tennis all in one place for the first time in the UK and Ireland, at no additional cost to a Prime membership.

Catherine Whitaker and Marcus Buckland will present Prime Video’s live studio tennis coverage across the remainder of the season. With former players and tennis experts Greg Rusedski, Daniela Hantuchova, Tim Henman and Annabel Croft all providing commentary and analysis. Experienced broadcasters Sam Smith, Mark Petchey, Robbie Koenig and Nick Lester will also feature in the lead commentary line up throughout the season. British player Laura Robson, former British No.1 and broadcaster Anne Keothavong and TV presenter Radzi Chinyanganya will join for the US Open, with additional special guests confirmed later.

In addition to the US Open and the first WTA and ATP tour events, Prime Video will broadcast live studio coverage at WTA’s Top Seed Open, presented by Bluegrass Orthopaedics, Lexington (10-16 August), featuring Serena Williams and Johanna Konta, as well as at combined ATP and WTA tournaments, including Western & Southern Open, New York (formerly Cincinnati), featuring Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray (22-28 August), Mutua Madrid Open (14-20 September) and Internazionali BNL d'Italia (20-27 September).

“We’re excited to be bringing back live, global tennis, including the ATP, WTA and US Open, to Prime Video customers in the UK & Ireland at no extra cost to their Prime membership,” commented Alex Green, MD Prime Video Sport Europe. “We know that fans across the UK and Ireland have been missing live tennis, especially during the summer. Viewers can look forward to the return of our studio coverage with first-class presenters and commentators across both men’s and women’s tours, all in one place on Prime Video.”

Customers will have access to full, uninterrupted, live coverage from every televised court, all match replays, and highlights on demand from tournaments across the season, including the upcoming US Open Grand Slam, ATP Masters 1000s and WTA Premier Mandatories, as well as ATP 500s and 250s, and WTA Internationals, Premiers and Premier 5s. Coverage will be available to watch with the Prime Video app on TVs, mobile devices, games consoles, set-top-boxes, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, or online.

Tennis supports a growing line-up of live sports on Prime Video, including select Premier League matches per season in the UK and NFL Thursday Night Football games available to customers worldwide. This is in addition to a selection of Amazon Original sports docuseries, including upcoming All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, All or Nothing: Manchester City, All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks, and All or Nothing seasons with American Football teams, as well as Andy Murray: Resurfacing, women’s No.1 tennis film, Unraveling Athena, Take Us Home: Leeds United and Steven Gerrard’s Make Us Dream.

Prime Video’s investment in on-screen tennis coverage is also reflected off-screen with the Prime Video Future Talent Award, supported by Andy Murray, an award which supports young British tennis talent, Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, through funding and mentoring over a two-year cycle.

Upcoming tennis tournaments on Prime Video include:

  • 31st Palermo Ladies Open – Monday 3rd to Sunday 9th August (WTA)

  • Prague Open – Monday 10th to Sunday 16th August (WTA)

  • Top Seed Open, presented by Bluegrass Orthopaedics – Monday 10th to Sunday 16th August (WTA)

  • Western & Southern Open – Saturday 22nd to Friday 28th August (WTA & ATP)

  • US Open – Monday 31st August to Sunday 13th September (Grand Slam)

  • TEB BNP Paribas Tennis Championship Istanbul – Monday 7th to Sunday 13th September (WTA)

  • Generali Open – Tuesday 8th to Sunday 13th September (ATP)

  • Mutua Madrid Open – Monday 14th – Sunday 20th September (WTA & ATP)

  • Internazionali BNL d'Italia – Sunday 20th – Sunday 27th September (WTA & ATP)

Eurosport continues tennis comeback with live grass court action

9 July 2020

• Eurosport will show the bett1ACES tournament in Berlin from 13-19 July including first grass court action of the year

• Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Tommy Haas, Nick Kyrgios, Elina Svitolina, Kiki Bertens and Petra Kvitova among stars taking part

• Tournament kick-starts Eurosport’s unbeatable six-months of live tennis and Grand Slam action

The long-awaited return of grass court tennis is set to arrive as Eurosport announces it will show the bett1ACES tournament, which takes place in Berlin from 13-19 July, exclusively in more than 50 markets across Europe*.

Fans can enjoy coverage of one of the first world-class grass court tournaments of the year through Eurosport with all four daily bett1ACES matches (from 12:00-18:00 CET) broadcast live on an exclusive basis* on Eurosport 1 with streaming live and on-demand via the Eurosport App.

The singles tournament features six ATP and six WTA players, who will share a €200,000 prize pot, including home favourites Alexander Zverev and former world no.2 Tommy Haas as he continues his eagerly anticipated return to professional tennis. The event kicks-off from the new Center Court at the Steffi Graf stadium at the LTTC Rot-Weiss tennis club (13-15 July) before matches move to the hardcourt at a unique purpose-built arena within a hangar at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport (17-19 July).

Organizers e|motion group will enforce strict social distancing measures in coordination with local health authorities with spectator numbers limited to 800 at the Steffi Graf Center Court (regular capacity 4,000 seats) and 200 at Tempelhof Airport. All players and their staff will be tested for Covid-19 upon arrival, anyone entering either site will require a temperature check and all spectators will be urged to wear facemasks when not in their seats.

Andrew Georgiou, President, Eurosport and Global Sports Rights & Sports Marketing Solutions, said: “We are incredibly excited to be showcasing some of the world’s top tennis talent by bringing fans live grass court action for the first time this year.

“By leveraging the full portfolio of channels and platforms the Eurosport network has to offer, we are able to seamlessly scale world-class coverage and expert analysis to serve more than 50 markets and territories any way our customers choose to watch. We look forward to continuing to reward our fans with exclusive tennis content as we build towards back-to-back Grand Slams as part of unbeatable second half of the year.”

Edwin Weindorfer, organizer of the bett1ACES and CEO of the e|motion group, said:

“We are extremely delighted to team up with such a prestigious partner as Eurosport on a pan-European level and are looking forward to present the bett1ACES tennis event with a state of the art broadcast product with some novelties such as the integration of a drone and the HawkEye Live technology for line calling at both tournaments.

“In these difficult times it makes us very happy to be able to offer world-class tennis to fans around the world. We have a great responsibility in these challenging times and will implement strict hygiene and safety measures for all players, fans and staff.”

The bett1ACES tournament is the latest in a series of live tennis events Eurosport has brought to fans including Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown and Schroders Battle of the Brits as it builds up to an autumn of Grand Slam tennis with the US Open (31 August – 13 September) and Roland-Garros (27 September – 11 October) being shown to fans across Europe.

The full line-up includes:

Women’s

• Elina Svitolina (No.5)

• Kiki Bertens (No.7)

• Petra Kvitova (No.12)

• Julia Goerges (No.38)

• Caroline Garcia (No. 46)

• Andrea Petkovic (No.87)

Men's

• Dominic Thiem (No.3)

• Alexander Zverev (No.7)

• Jan-Lennard Struff (No. 34)

• Nick Kyrgios (No.40)

• Jannik Sinner (No.73)

• Tommy Haas (Former No.2)

*Eurosport has pan-European exclusivity to show the bett1ACES tournament except in Germany, Austria and Switzerland where fans are still able to watch via Eurosport but coverage is also available via local broadcasters.

Eurosport to screen Thiem's 7 tennis tournament

9 July 2020

• Eurosport will show Dominic Thiem’s THIEMs7 tournament live from Kitzbühel, Austria

• Strong line-up will see world’s top talent and young Austrian stars go head-to-head

Tennis fans across the world can enjoy THIEMs7 tournament live from Kitzbühel, Austria this week as Eurosport is set to exclusively screen the action across Europe, Asia and Asia-Pacific*, reaffirming it as the home of tennis globally.

Organised by world no.3 Dominic Thiem and his coach and Father Wolfgang Thiem, the clay court tournament runs from 13:00 CET Tuesday 7 July – Saturday 11 July with coverage available live via Eurosport 1 and live and on-demand via the Eurosport App exclusively in 75 markets*.

The tournament combines a strong line-up for fans to enjoy including five top 20 players Dominic Thiem (no.3), Matteo Berrettini (no.8), Roberto Bautista Agut (no.12), Andrey Rublev (no.14) and Karen Khachanov (no.15) with the best young and upcoming Austrian talent also showcased as part of the event.

Speaking about the tournament, Dominic Thiem said: "It is just fantastic to be here again. I arrived in the best weather and have already had a good training session. Now it is time to adjust to the altitude. I am really looking forward to seeing the others again - I haven't met most of them since March, since Indian Wells. I'm really looking forward to it."

THIEMs7 tournament is the latest in a series of exciting tennis exhibition events Eurosport has brought to fans during the absence of ATP matches. Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown concludes this weekend on Eurosport as it continues to build-up to an autumn of Grand Slam tennis with the US Open (31 August – 13 September) and Roland-Garros (27 September – 11 October) being shown to fans across Europe.

Line-up includes:

Alexander Erler; Jurij Rodionov; Sebastian Ofner; Lucas Miedler; Dennis Novak; Andrey Rublev; Jan-Lennard Struff; Dominic Thiem; Casper Ruud; Matteo Berrettini; Karen Khachanov; Roberto Bautista Agut

Match schedule on Eurosport:

Tuesday

Match 1: 13:00 - Rublev v Struff

Match 2: followed by - Thiem v Ruud

Match 3: followed by - Berrettini v Novak

Match 4: after 18:30 – Khachanov v Bautista Agut

Wednesday

Match 1: 13:00 - Berrettini v Bautista Agut

Match 2: followed by - Khachanov v Novak

Match 3: followed by - Struff v Ruud

Match 4: not before 20:15 - Thiem v Rublev

Thursday

Match 1: 13:00 - Bautista Agut v Novak

Match 2: followed by - Rublev v Ruud

Match 3: followed by - Thiem v Struff

Match 4: after 20:15 – Berrettini v Khachanov

Friday

Match 1: 13:30 - Semi-final 1

Match 2: followed by - Semi-final 2

Saturday

Match 1: 11:30 - 3rd place

Match 2: not before 13:00 - final

*Exclusive in all markets except Germany, Austria and Switzerland where local coverage is also available. In Finland, live coverage is available on digital channels


Battle of the Brits on Amazon Prime Video

15 June 2020

Amazon Prime Video will be teaming up with Jamie Murray and Schroders to host the UK’s first ‘Behind Closed-Door’ indoor tennis tournament, Battle of the Brits.

Prime Video holds the exclusive broadcast rights in the UK and Ireland to Battle of the Brits and will live stream the six day long tournament live from the Lawn Tennis Association headquarters in Roehampton from the 23rd – 28th of June, with coverage commencing at 12:50pm each day, ten minutes before the first match. The tournament will also be tracked via Hawk-Eye, as opposed to line judges.

Players making up the Tim Henman singles group include James Ward, Liam Broady, Andy Murray and Kyle Edmund. Players in the Greg Rusedski group include Jack Draper, Jay Clarke, Cam Norrie and Dan Evans.

Players competing in the Paul Hutchins doubles group include Liam Broady & Cam Norrie, Dan Evans & Lloyd Glasspool and Jamie Murray & Neal Skupski. Those playing in the Cathie Sabin doubles group include Kyle Edmund & Jack Draper, Dom Inglot & Jay Clarke and Joe Salisbury & Jonny O’Mara.

Annabel Croft will be reporting Prime Video coverage, whilst Sam Smith, Nick Lester and Barry Cowan will be among those providing commentary.

Prime members in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch Battle of the Brits through the Prime Video app on TVs, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, games consoles, set-top-boxes, or online.

To access the exclusive content, simply head to the Prime Video homepage where you can stream the live tournament. New Amazon Prime customers can sign up to get a 30-day free trial, allowing full access to the live match coverage as well as a vast collection of TV shows and movies and unlimited fast free delivery across all categories on Amazon.

BBC to serve up over 50 hours of Wimbledon programming this summer

12 June 2020

  • Sue Barker hosts Wimbledon 2020 each weeknight from The All England Lawn Tennis Club

  • Clare Balding to present Wimbledon Rewind each week day on BBC Two

  • Andy Murray’s Greatest Hits will showcase remarkable career highlights

  • Top ten men’s and women’s finals will be counted down in Wimbledon: The Greatest Final

Despite the cancellation of this year’s Wimbledon Championships, BBC Sport will continue to bring tennis action to fans with over 50 hours of programming over the course of two weeks.

From the 29th June, Wimbledon 2020 will take place each weeknight on BBC Two from 8pm where Sue Barker is joined by legends of The Championships to look back on some of its highlights. The one hour show will see Tim Henman and Boris Becker join Sue in the studio with John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova adding their thoughts via video link. Current players will also share their reflections on life away from competition.

Alongside the fun and analysis, viewers will have their chance to get involved with online votes, quiz questions and even the chance to send in their attempts at trick shots for review.

Wimbledon Rewind will air on BBC Two each week day from 1.45pm as Clare Balding takes viewers back in time to some of The Championships’ most memorable matches. Over three hours, Clare will revisit some of the classics including the women's 1969 final between Ann Jones and Billie Jean King, Boris Becker v Kevin Curren in 1985, the men’s final between Goran Ivanisevic and Andre Agassi in 1992 and the women's 2012 final between Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska.

Kicking things off, fans can relive the excitement of the 2019 Championships and that epic men’s final with Wimbledon 2019 Review, 28th June from 12.05pm on BBC Two.

In Andy Murray’s Greatest Hits, Sue Barker looks back at the remarkable career of one of Britain’s greatest sportsmen. Highlights include the 2013 Wimbledon Final when he became the first British male player to win the Wimbledon singles in 77 years as well as both of his dramatic victories in the London and Rio Olympic Games. Andy Murray’s Greatest Hits will air on 4th July at 1.15pm and 5th July at 2pm, BBC One.

Even more tennis throwbacks are served on 11th July at 1.15pm and 12th July at 2pm on BBC One with Wimbledon: The Greatest Final. Over the course of the weekend we’ll count down the best ever women’s and men’s Wimbledon finals.

Special documentary One Day (7pm, 12th July, BBC One) offers a look back at the famous day of 14th July 2019 which saw one of the most incredible Wimbledon men’s final matches of all time and the England men’s cricket team winning the World Cup for the first time ever. Relive the tense five hour back and forth between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and the electrifying moment the England cricket team stormed to victory against New Zealand.

Throughout Wimbledon fortnight, the BBC Sport website will live stream coverage while hosting a series of votes for the public to have their say, including selecting the top ten Wimbledon finals to ever take place. Bespoke video and written content will be available daily alongside a mixture of fun quizzes and features to keep tennis fans entertained.

Director of Sport, Barbara Slater said: “Whilst there will be no live play this year, we’re looking forward to bringing plenty of Wimbledon action to tennis fans this summer. Incredible victories, crushing defeats and expert comment and opinions from our tennis teams will combine for a fortnight of entertainment.”

Jamie Murray and Amazon Prime Video launch UK's first 'behind-closed-doors' tournament

29 May 2020

Jamie Murray, Schroders and Amazon Prime Video team up to host the UK’s first ‘Behind-Closed-Doors’ indoor tennis tournament featuring top-ranked players to raise money for NHS Charities Together

Prime Video, who have the exclusive broadcast rights in the UK & Ireland, will live stream ‘Schroders Battle of the Brits’, a six-day long event, televised from the Lawn Tennis Association’s headquarters in Roehampton

Other broadcasters include Eurosport and Tennis Channel outside the UK

Jamie Murray, seven-times Grand Slam doubles and mixed doubles champion, announced today he has co-organised the UK’s first ‘behind-closed-doors’ tennis tournament to bring much-missed live sport to fans, while raising a minimum of £100,000 for NHS Charities Together.

Schroders Battle of the Brits, a six-day long tournament taking place from 23rd to 28th June at the Lawn Tennis Association’s headquarters, Roehampton, will see the UK’s top-ranked male players, including Andy and Jamie Murray, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund, compete to be crowned singles and doubles champions. Sports fans will be able to watch live action game play exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and Ireland and on Eurosport and Tennis Channel in the US.

Speaking at the launch of the tournament, Jamie Murray said: “The last few months have been incredibly challenging times for everyone, and we see this event as our way of giving back. A lot of work has gone in to make sure this could happen and we are very excited to be able to bring an action packed week of tennis, while raising valuable funds for NHS heroes to say thank you for the amazing work they have done.”

Jamie went on to say, “I’m really excited to be putting on Schroders Battle of the Brits and for the first time bringing together the current generation of British male players to compete against one another while raising significant funds for charity. I am particularly grateful to our broadcast partner here in the UK, Amazon Prime Video, for enabling this event to happen.”

Prime Video is the UK & Ireland’s exclusive rights holder for Schroders Battle of the Brits tennis tournament. “We are excited to support Jamie and offer this six-day tournament to our Prime Video customers in the UK & Ireland at no extra cost to their Prime membership,” commented Alex Green, MD Prime Video Sport Europe. “We know that fans across the UK are missing live tennis, especially during the British summer, and we are sure this will delight them and give them a chance to see Andy, Jamie and the other top British male players in competitive action again. This builds on Prime Video’s ongoing support for British tennis.”

The tennis tournament joins a growing line-up of live sports on Prime Video, including live and exclusive UK tennis coverage of tournaments from the ATP, WTA Tours and US Open, 20 Premier League matches per season in the UK and NFL Thursday Night Football games available to customers worldwide. This is in addition to a selection of Amazon Original sports docuseries, including upcoming All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, All or Nothing: Manchester City, All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks, and All or Nothing seasons with American Football teams, as well as Andy Murray: Resurfacing, Take Us Home: Leeds United and Steven Gerrard’s Make Us Dream.

World-leading global investment manager Schroders are headline sponsors of the event, and Peter Harrison, Chief Executive Officer of Schroders said: “It is an honour to be able to support Jamie Murray and his team to organise this ground-breaking event, which will bring a smile to faces of sports fans everywhere while raising money for NHS charities. We have long believed in ‘investing for what matters most’, and this event is a real embodiment of that ethos."

The LTA, is working closely with Jamie on tournament preparations, subject to government guidelines as set out under a phase three return to ‘behind-closed-doors’ elite sporting events.

Scott Lloyd, LTA Chief Executive, said: “The LTA is looking forward to bringing tennis back into people’s lives this summer and are excited about events like this inspiring fans to get involved in our sport and pick up a racket”

He went onto say: “We’ve been discussing this event with Jamie for some time and support his efforts, and those of others, to put on events as part of a co-ordinated plan in returning to elite competition. We are represented on the UK Sport working group advising Government on the necessary protocols for the return to elite sport and when the Government is able to announce this phase of eased restrictions for behind-closed-doors events we will work with Jamie’s team to undertake the necessary preparations and risk assessments. The LTA is looking forward to bringing tennis back into people’s lives this summer and are excited about events like this inspiring fans to get involved in our sport and pick up a racket.”

Amazon Prime Video announces 2020 live tennis coverage and team

24 February 2020

Amazon Prime Video expands its exclusive live tennis coverage in 2020 with over 80 tournaments from the ATP and WTA tours, becoming the home for tennis fans in the UK and Ireland

Prime members in the UK and Ireland will have exclusive access to over 80 tournaments from the ATP and WTA tours, and the US Open in 2020, at no extra cost to their Prime membership

Catherine Whitaker, Marcus Buckland, Martina Navratilova, Greg Rusedski, Daniela Hantuchova, Tim Henman, Annabel Croft, Sam Smith, Mark Petchey, Robbie Koenig and Nick Lester are confirmed as Prime Video’s presenting, analysis and commentary team

In 2020 WTA joins Prime Video’s exclusive tennis coverage of the ATP Tour and US Open, bringing customers the best in men’s and women’s tennis, all in one place for the first time in the UK and Ireland

This year Amazon Prime Video will deliver live and exclusive coverage of over 80 tournaments from the ATP and WTA Tours, as well as the US Open, giving customers access to the men’s and women’s tennis all in one place for the first time, and establishing Prime Video as the home for tennis fans in the UK and Ireland, at no additional cost to their Prime membership.

Catherine Whitaker and Marcus Buckland will present Prime Video’s live, on-site tennis coverage. With former players and tennis experts Martina Navratilova, Greg Rusedski, Daniela Hantuchova, Tim Henman and Annabel Croft all providing commentary and analysis. Experienced broadcasters Sam Smith, Mark Petchey, Robbie Koenig and Nick Lester will also feature in the lead commentary line up. With additional experts and commentators joining throughout the season.

Prime Video will broadcast live, on-site coverage across many ATP and WTA tournaments in 2020, including combined coverage at the upcoming BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells (11-22 March), Miami Open presented by Itaú (24 March-5 April), Mutua Madrid Open (2-10 May), and Western & Southern Open at Cincinnati (16-23 August), so customers will have the ease of watching both the men’s and women’s tours which take place at the same time and same location, all in one place on Prime Video. In addition, Prime members can enjoy live studio coverage across customer-favourite tournaments like the Fever Tree Championships from The Queens Club (15-21 June), the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals from the O2 London (10-14 November) and Shiseido WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China (1-8 November).

Customers will have access to full, uninterrupted, live coverage from every televised court, all match replays normally available within 15 minutes, and highlights on demand the following day from many other tournaments across the season, including all ATP Masters 1000s and WTA Premier Mandatory’s, as well as ATP 500s and 250s, and WTA Internationals, Premiers and Premier 5s. Available to watch with the Prime Video app on TVs, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, games consoles, set-top-boxes, or online.

Plus, in 2020 the US Open will return for a third year exclusively on Prime Video. In addition, customers in the UK who subscribe to Eurosport Player through Prime Video Channels can watch Roland-Garros and the Australian Open, as well as daily highlights and live coverage from the men’s and women’s finals of Wimbledon for an additional £6.99 per month (following a 7-day free trial). Prime Video’s investment in on-screen tennis coverage is also reflected off-screen with the Prime Video Future Talent Award, supported by Andy Murray, an award which supports young British tennis talent, Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, through funding and mentoring over a two-year cycle.

Tennis supports a growing line-up of live sports on Prime Video, including 20 Premier League matches per season in the UK and NFL Thursday Night Football games available to customers worldwide. This is in addition to a selection of Amazon Original sports docuseries, including All or Nothing: Manchester City, All or Nothing: Brazil National Team, All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks, and All or Nothing seasons with American Football teams, as well as Andy Murray: Resurfacing, Take Us Home: Leeds United and Steven Gerrard’s Make Us Dream.

How to watch tennis on telly in 2020

Tennis coverage undergoes another big change for the 2020 season and here's your essential guide on how to make sure you don't miss any of it.

2019

Articles are presented without formatting as they have been copied over from the old website.

US Open - your essential guide to watching New York's Grand Slam

24 August 2019

All eyes stateside over the next two weeks as the 2019 US Open Tennis Championships take place. Starting on Monday 26 August, here is your essential guide on how and when to follow all the action.

Amazon Prime Video has exclusive coverage of the US Open in the UK and Ireland.

Television coverage</h2> <strong><a href="https://amzn.to/2Zt2mKJ">Amazon Prime Video</a></strong> has exclusive live coverage of the US Open tournament for the second year in the UK and Ireland. Prime Video costs from £5.99 per month for just the video element, and you can usually get a <strong>30-day free trial</strong> if you've not used it before. <strong>Catherine Whitaker</strong> will anchor the Prime Video's main TV coverage with Daniela Hantuchova and Greg Rusedski in the studio. They will be joined for analysis for the first time by seven-time Grand Slam singles winner John McEnroe, 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Martina Navratilova, and former British No.1 Tim Henman.

Prime Video's<strong> commentary team</strong> includes four-time Grand Slam winner Jim Courier, former British No.1 Annabel Croft, analyst Mark Petchey, Mary Carillo and Pete Odgers. Karthi Gnanasegaram and Marcus Buckland will present features and highlights. Coverage begins with a <strong>pre-match show</strong> at 15:30 BST each day, half an hour before play begins. Match <strong>replays</strong> will be available within fifteen minutes of matches ending and <strong>highlights</strong> will be available on demand the following day. <h3>Radio coverage</h3> <strong>📻

BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have commentary every day throughout the US Open, most days starting at 17:00 BST. <hr />

Draw preview</h2> <strong>Kyle Edmund</strong> is the 30th seed and will play his first match with Pablo Andujar on Tuesday. He could meet Dominic Thiem in the third round and Gael Monfils in the fourth. He is in Stefanos Tsitsipas' quarter of the draw and if he reaches the semi-finals would most likely play 2nd seed Rafael Nadal. <strong>Cameron Norrie</strong> and <strong>Dan Evans</strong> are both in the same section of the draw. Norrie plays qualifier Gregoire Barrere in the first round and David Goffin is his likely second round opponent. Evans will play Adrian Mannarino first and then would face the winner of Phillip Kolhschreiber v Lucas Pouille before a possible meeting with Roger Federer in the third round; Norrie would play the 3rd seed in the fourth. Kei Nishikori is the other most likely quarter finalist; this is top seed Novak Djokovic's half of the draw.

16th seed <strong>Johanna Konta </strong>plays Daria Kasatkina in the first round, and should she get to the third would probably play Zhang Shuai who is seeded 33 following a reshuffle due to the withdrawal of Marketa Vondrousova. Karolina Pliskova is the top seed in this section, and the potential quarter finalist is Elina Svitolina or Madison Keys. Also in the bottom half of the draw, which plays Monday, is <strong>Harriet Dart</strong> who has drawn fellow qualifier Ana Bogdan. She would probably play Petra Martic in the second round and Anastasija Sevastova in the third. This section of the draw has Serena Williams v Maria Sharapova in the first round. Ashleigh Barty is the second seed, with Naomi Osaka heading up the draw in the top half. The doubles draws have not yet been made. <h2>Elsewhere</h2> Just to mention <strong>Andy Murray </strong>is playing the Mallorca Challenger this week, and you can watch this live at <a href="http://livestream.com/ATP">livestream.com/ATP</a> Updates on all coverage will be on @tennisontelly on Twitter throughout the US Open fortnight.

WTA TV no longer offering annual subscription in the UK

5 August 2019

We checked with WTA TV: it's a result of the rights deal with Amazon Prime Video who will have full exclusivity from 2020.

WTA TV, the WTA's over-the-top streaming service, has stopped offering an annual subscription to customers in the UK. Users in other countries confirmed they were still able to sign up for a yearly subscription to WTA TV.

Amazon Prime Video hold the broadcast rights to show matches from 49 WTA Tour events from the new year, taking over from BT Sport. The US market lost access to WTA TV at the start of 2019 when a new rights deal with Tennis Channel came into effect, and it seems a similar arrangement is now in place here in the UK. When asked, WTA TV Customer Services confirmed, "Yes, this is exactly because Amazon Prime UK will be showing WTA TV matches in January 2020. "Thus, as of now, you can subscribe using a monthly pass only." WTA TV customers in the US were contacted in November 2018 and offered pro-rata refunds if they had already paid upfront well into the current season. It's expected the same process will be followed here in the UK. If you currently subscribe to BT Sport for your WTA coverage, their tennis coverage will end with the WTA Finals in October. You need to give 30 days' notice to end a BT Sport subscription. Amazon Prime's WTA deal will add to their current coverage of the US Open, all ATP Tour Masters 1000 and 500 events, 13 ATP 250 events and the Laver Cup. Despite some issues with their coverage from Washington last week, overall Prime's tennis coverage has improved since it began last summer. Latest improvements to navigation were unveiled this week.

Wimbledon 2019 - your essential guide to watching The Championships

29 June 2019

Wimbledon is the biggest tennis event of the year - as far as British interest is concerned. Starting on Monday 1 July, here is your essential guide on where and when to watch.

Television coverage</h3> Live coverage will be on <strong>BBC One and BBC Two in HD</strong>. The <strong>BBC Red Button</strong> 🔴 will have up to 6 matches available on terrestrial, cable and satellite, with one of these in HD on satellite and cable. Centre Court matches will again be available in <strong>UHD via BBC iPlayer</strong> and the red button. <strong>Every court will be available</strong> to watch in HD for the first time on the BBC Sport website and through the BBC Sport app, and on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days. <strong>Sue Barker</strong> will anchor the coverage across BBC One and BBC Two, with analysis from John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker, Billie Jean King, Pat Cash, Tracy Austin, Kim Clijsters and Tim Henman. In addition to the above, the <strong>commentary team</strong> is made up of Vijay Amritraj, Chris Bradnam, James Burridge, Andrew Castle, Matt Chilton, Andrew Cotter, Annabel Croft, Nick Lester, Todd Woodbridge, Jo Durie, Peter Fleming, Paul Hand, John Inverdale, John Lloyd, Dan Lobb, Ronald McIntosh, David Mercer, Nick Mullins, Peter Odgers, Mark Petchey, Louise Pleming, Simon Reed, Chanda Rubin, Gigi Salmon, Sam Smith, Liz Smylie and Mel South. Lee McKenzie, Rishi Persad, Reshmin Chowdhury, Patrick Gearey and Simon Mundie will provide reports and features. <strong>Start times for each day's coverage are shown below.</strong> On most days coverage begins on BBC Two with BBC One joining after the BBC News at One. Live coverage each evening is subject to change depending on the success of British players as in previous years when coverage has continued on BBC One past 18:00.

Clare Balding will present daily highlights in <strong>Today at Wimbledon</strong>, which comes live from the open air studio by Henman Hill daily on BBC Two.

All <strong>doubles and wheelchair finals</strong> will be on BBC One or Two also in addition to the men’s and women’s singles finals. Eurosport will have nightly highlights and will also show the men’s and women’s singles finals live. <h3>

Radio coverage</h3> <strong>📻 BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have commentary every day throughout The Championships. Gigi Salmon and Tony Livesey host the coverage on Radio 5 Live, with analysis from Marion Bartoli, Pat Cash, Kim Clijsters, Laura Robson, Leon Smith, Chanda Rubin, Annabel Croft, Miles Maclagan, Mark Woodforde and Jeff Tarango. John McEnroe returns to present his 5 Live show on both Thursdays with listeners getting the chance to have their say. 5 Live’s commentary team is led by tennis correspondent Russell Fuller, along with Gigi Salmon, David Law, Naomi Cavaday, Jonathan Overend, Iain Carter, and Alastair Eykyn. <hr /> <h2>

Draw Preview</h2> Monday's Centre Court action begins with defending men's singles champion Novak Djokovic against Philipp Kohlschrieber. Tuesday will see Angelique Kerber play fellow German Tatjana Maria play first on Centre court. <strong>Kyle Edmund</strong> and <strong>Heather Watson</strong> are the only players who will play on Monday, with the other Brits in singles starting their campaigns on Tuesday First we'll take a look at the draws, with particular emphasis on the Brits. <h3>

Men's singles</h3> British number one <strong>Kyle Edmund</strong> is the 30th seed in the top half of the men's singles draw. Edmund will play his first match on Monday against Spaniard Jaume Munar, ranked 88, who he has never played before. He is likely to play Fernando Verdasco in the second round and if he can get past 7th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third, he could then play Daniil Medvedev or David Goffin - the other seeded players in this section - in the fourth round. Some of the more likely quarter-finalists in this part of the draw are last year's finalist Kevin Anderson, Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic and Alexander Zverev. Edmund can't meet top seed Novak Djokovic until the semi-finals. <strong>Cameron Norrie</strong> has a first meeting with world number 109 Denis Istomin on Tuesday and he's likely to play Kei Nishikori in the second round. Alex de Minaur is a potential third round opponent, and John Isner is in this section. This is second seed Roger Federer's quarter of the draw. <strong>Dan Evans</strong> and <strong>James Ward</strong> could meet in the second round. Evans plays world number 76 Federico Delbonis but it's a tougher ask for Ward against 18th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili. Rising star and NCAA champion<strong> Paul Jubb</strong> is also in this part of the draw but has to pass 66th ranked Joao Sousa and probably 13th seed Marin Cilic to set up an unlikely but possible all-Brit third round. This is Rafael Nadal's section of the draw and Dominic Thiem is the most likely quarter finalist for Nadal, or anyone who can get past him. <strong>Jay Clarke</strong> plays qualifier Noah Rubin for the first time. The American is ranked 183, not far below Clarke at 166, and the winner there will probably get Roger Federer in the second round. <h3>

Men's doubles</h3> There are seven all-Brit doubles teams and four more Brits partnering players from other countries. <strong>Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski</strong> are seeded 10th and there's a potential third round meeting with brother <strong>Andy Murray</strong> who partners Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Wildcards were given to <strong>Evan Hoyt and Luke Johnson</strong>, who could become Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski's second round opponents. <strong>Cameron Norrie</strong> and Jaume Munar play <strong>Dominic Inglot</strong> an Austin Krajicek in the first round. <strong>Dan Evans and Lloyd Glasspool</strong> could meet <strong>Liam Broady and Scott Clayton</strong> in the second round if both teams win their firsts. In the bottom half of the men's doubles draw <strong>Jay Clarke and James Ward</strong> will play <strong>Ken Skupski</strong> and Australian John-Patrick Smith in the first round.<strong> Luke Bambridge and Jonny O'Mara</strong> could play them in the third, and<strong> Joe Salisbury</strong> and Rajeev Ram are 12th seeds in this section. A wildcard has been awarded to last year's junior singles finalist <strong>Jack Draper and Paul Judd</strong>, but they have drawn second seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the first round. <h3>

Women's singles</h3> <strong>Johanna Konta</strong> is the 19th seed and in the first round will play Romanian qualifier Ana Bogdan, who she beat on her run to the Rabat final in April. Her second round would be against Ekaterina Alexandrova or Katerina Siniakova, and she is likely to face Sloane Stephens in the third. This is Petra Kvitova's quarter and if seeds come through, the quarter finalist would be Kiki Bertens.

Katie Swan</strong> is in Bertens' section, and plays world number 84 Laura Siegemund for the first time, looking to then face the winner of Barbora Strycova v Lesia Tsurenko. The winner of that second round match is likely to play Bertens, and Wang Qiang is also in this section. <strong>Harriet Dart</strong> is also in the top half of the draw, and has drawn lucky loser Christina McHale of the USA. The winner of that one should play 2017 champion Garbine Muguruza in the second round, with world number 1 Ashleigh Barty in the third. This section of the draw also contains Nottingham finalist Donna Vekic. Seven-time champion Serena Williams and 2018 title holder Angelique Kerber are potential quarter finalists for Barty assuming she is undefeated in her section. <strong>Heather Watson</strong> is in the bottom half of the draw and will play qualifier Caty McNally on Monday. The winner here will play Shelby Rogers who has returned from injury, or 20th seed Estonian Anett Kontaveit. 16th seed Marketa Vondrousova is a potential third round opponent and the section contains Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko - who play each other in the first round - and third seed Karolina Pliskova. Seeded players in the other section of this quarter are Elina Svitolina, Maria Sakkari, Petra Martic and Anastasija Sevastosa. Second seed Naomi Osaka plays Yulia Putintseva in the first round - a rematch from Birmingham in which the now world number 2 lost. Caroline Wozniacki, Simona Halep and Aryna Sabalenka are also in this quarter which contains the first round match between Americans Venus Williams and Cori Gauff - the oldest and youngest players in the women's competition. The WTA number 1 singles ranking is on the line at Wimbledon with Osaka, Pliskova, Bertens and Kvitova all in contention to take the top spot from Barty at Wimbledon. <h3>

Women's doubles</h3> There are no Brits seeded in the women's doubles draw. <strong>Heather Watson</strong> and Mandy Minella are in the same section as wildcards <strong>Naiktha Bains and Naomi Broady</strong>, who drew second seeds Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Sinakova. In the top half there is a possible unlikely second round match between British wildcard pairings, <strong>Harriet Dart and Katy Dunne</strong> could play <strong>Freya Christie and Katie Swan</strong> if they can get past the 9th seeded sisters Hao-Ching and Latisha Chan and Spanish pair Maria Martinez Sanches and Sara Sorribes Tormo respectively. Katy Dunne had to withdraw from singles qualifying through injury but hopes to still play doubles. <strong>Sarah Beth Grey and Eden Silva</strong> will play Sorona Cirstea and Galian Voskoboeva in the first round. They are in the section of top seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic. <strong>The mixed doubles draw, juniors and wheelchair draws have yet to be made.</strong> <hr />

In addition to the live tennis, here are few other things to look out for over on TV this fortnight. The BBC's review of <strong>Wimbledon 2018 Review</strong> is on Sunday 30 June at 13:00 on BBC Two. This is followed at 14:00 by <strong>Talking Tennis</strong> in which Alistair McGowan celebrates the annual Championships by highlighting some of the greatest tennis rivalries. In <strong>John McEnroe: Still Rocking At 60</strong> on Sunday 30 June at 22:30 on BBC One, Sue Barker presents an intimate profile of the tennis champion featuring contributions from family and friends. Sue pays a visit to McEnroe's art gallery and examines how he has continued playing until the age of 60 after his retirement from the professional circuit. This is repeated on middle Sunday 7 July at 14:30 on BBC One. BT Sport are showing finals from WTA tournaments so far this year every morning during the two weeks.


Roland-Garros 2019: your essential guide

26 May 2019

All eyes on the clay courts of Paris for the next two weeks, through the cameras of Eurosport and ITV.

There are just the four Brits competing at the French Open. <strong>Johanna Konta </strong>has had some good form on clay this year, and will be looking for her first win at Roland-Garros, having failed to get past the opening round in the past. She should be confident of breaking that duck this time round as she will play qualifier Antonia Lottner on Monday. In the men's draw <strong>Kyle Edmund</strong> is the 28th seed and will play Jeremy Chardy in the first round, also on Monday. Kyle beat the Frenchman on clay in Barcelona two years ago but has lost his last five matches on clay. <strong>Cameron Norrie</strong> was originally drawn to play Nick Kyrgios until the Australian withdrew with illness. Cameron now plays French qualifier Elliot Benchetrit on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, <strong>Dan Evans</strong> will play 23rd seed Fernando Verdasco for the first time. Worth noting that Evans and Edmund are in the same section of the draw, and theoretically could meet in the fourth round if seeds Dominic Thiem and Gael Monfils fail to meet expectations. <strong>Jay Clarke</strong> and <strong>James Ward </strong>both lost in the first qualifying round. <strong>Heather Watson </strong>made the second and <strong>Katie Swan</strong> the third. <strong>Katie Boulter</strong> was drawn to play Donna Vekic but withdrew on doctor's advice with her continuing back injury following the Fed Cup in April. Last year the French Open singles champions were <strong>Rafael Nadal</strong> and <strong>Simona Halep</strong>. <strong>Jamie Murray </strong>and Bruno Soares are the second doubles seeds. <strong>Joe Salisbury </strong>and Rajeev Ram are seeded 11th. The doubles draws are yet to be made. <h2>How to watch the French Open on the telly.</h2> <strong>Live coverage from Roland-Garros is across Eurosport and ITV.</strong> Eurosport has coverage of 16 courts at the French Open available on Eurosport Player showing every singles and doubles match. They'll also be live on Eurosport 1 from the start of play each day with Eurosport 2 joining later. Mats Wilander and Barbara Schett will host a nightly round-up of the action in Game Schett and Mats, with John McEnroe returning as the Commissioner of Tennis. Matt Smith returns as main presenter and will be joined by Annabel Croft and Pat Cash for analysis. Commentators include Chris Bradnam, Simon Reed, Frew McMillan, and Jo Durie. Also contributing to Eurosport's coverage are Catherine Whitaker, Boris Becker, Chris Evert, Kim Clijsters, Alex Corretja, and Patrick Mouratoglou. ITV's daily coverage will be on ITV 4 with the finals on ITV and will show a selection of live matches each day. John Inverdale anchors the coverage with commentary and analysis from Jim Courier, Marion Bartoli, Fabrice Santaro, Sam Smith, Mark Petchey, and joining them for the first time is Great Britain's Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong.

Following the live coverage, Eurosport will have highlights and repeats of Game Schett and Mats through the evening and overnight until the start of the next day's play. Matches will be available on demand on Eurosport Player. ITV's coverage is not available in Ireland. eir Sport will have nightly highlights throughout the tournament, and live coverage from the semi finals on Thursday 6 June. <strong>

📻 BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have one featured commentary every day throughout the French Open. Some commentaries will be online only.

Eurosport's Kim Clijsters on Roland-Garros 2019

25 May 2019

Four-time Grand Slam singles champion Kim Clijsters will be working for Eurosport during Roland-Garros and here she picks out some of the players to watch in the women's draw.

Kim’s take on the health of the women’s game:</strong> <em>Kim Clijsters:</em> Well I really enjoy it. I enjoy when I am doing commentary, and I have been fortunate enough to have sat in some really cool places right behind the players or at the bottom of the court and seeing body language and things you don’t get to see when you are playing your opponent and I really enjoyed, there are a few players I have really enjoyed watching. Osaka, the final of Osaka against Kvitova was incredible, both stories to me are very powerful individually, what they went through and how they got to that stage but I love watching it. Okay, in a way it seems a player like Simona or like Caroline stand out a little bit because the hard hitters, the clean ball strikers are still in a way dominant. With Osaka, the power that she can produce behind her forehand is incredible. We saw at a certain point, I think in the British media, that they were capable of dealing – in that game they were measuring Ostapenko’s forehand speed was faster than Andy Murray’s at the French Open. Little things like that, those are things that are very interesting to me. I love seeing a player like Ostapenko, how can she do it? Every story to me is a unique story on its own, I don’t see it really as a total so it’s very, very interesting. <strong>Thoughts on the form and fitness of Caroline Wozniacki:</strong> <em>KC:</em> I don't know exactly what are her health issues. She came out and said I think that she has arthritis or that she has rheumatoid arthritis and that she was on medication, I don't know. When she’s out there she seems to be competing hard but I don’t know how much effect that has on her but yes, she worked so hard towards getting that Grand Slam and in a way you always feel a little bit of relief once you’ve won it and I don't know, maybe your focus, your head, your work ethic goes down a little bit or anything but that was still one of my favourite moments, to see her win the Australian Open and knowing how much she had to deal with, never winning a Grand Slam and being number one and same for Simona for a while, it was just nice to see that by working hard and trying to stay humble and working hard you give yourself opportunities to get back and it was one of my favourite moments to see last year when she won the Australian Open. It’s interesting, to deal with the pressure and it’s the same thing you repeat for every player, every player deals with the same kind of things and you just react differently to them. I still think she is capable of playing good, I think she is better on a hard court but she can definitely can compete for a Grand Slam on any surface. <strong>On the frustrations of Wozniacki’s injuries and their impact on practice:</strong> <em>KC:</em> Yes, it must be difficult because like you said, the type of tennis that she plays, the way that she likes to move, she is not a player who is going to have a lot of short matches or short rallies. A lot of her games have long rallies and then she has to be fit to win her matches and I can imagine it is only frustrating for her but at the same time I imagine there are so many good things going on in her life with her fiancé, with David, just being able to share or experience a different side of life without always thinking about tennis and I’m very happy for her that she is able to have that. It’s interesting, every player has a different story and we definitely don’t know the whole story from everybody but it is interesting to see how players can deal with the pressure or who can take advantage of a top player who is maybe not feeling great and try to take their spot and go through the draw. It is all very interesting and I am excited for the French Open to start and to be a part of it in a small way. <strong>Thoughts on the form and chances of Angie Kerber and her challenging at Roland-Garros:</strong> <em>KC:</em> Yes, I do. I mean it all comes down to belief again. The way that she is capable of moving on clay and the way that she can defend, she has all the weapons to do it, it’s just having the belief, knowing that even when you don’t feel your best on a clay court it is good enough to win the tournament because she is good enough and so that will be, yes, it will be very, very interesting to see how she will step up and I’m sure, I’m not sure exactly if she has made her focus to try and be ready for the French Open and to be at the best way that she can be. So yes, it will be very interesting to see how she will deal with that even added pressure in a way, if it is added pressure for her. I know that she is definitely a player who I have really enjoyed watching over the years and for her to be in this position now is something very unique and I assume especially with Steffi having done it, yes, it will be very interesting to see how she will deal with that again. I’m sure when she gets to the French Open she will have a lot of questions about winning the tournament and what happens if you win and how will you feel when the tournament even starts. It’s all how you deal with those kind of things and to not let it get to you because every player knows that every match has to be played and nothing comes easily but you just have to try and keep the outside pressure at a distance a little bit. <strong>The chances for Johanna Konta at Roland Garros:</strong> <em>KC:</em> It is very nice to see that she’s been able to keep hanging in there and keep working hard to try to get the results to come back and feel good out there on court again because I’m sure these last couple of years haven’t been easy for her and one minute she’s hyped and doing great and then it all happened and it wasn’t as she expected it to be or was hoping it would be so it just shows, everybody has to work very hard to try and get good results and be consistent throughout a whole season and it’s great to see that she was capable of putting in a few wins in a row together at Rome and it’s great to have a few matches under her belt. For her getting to the French Open and to believe in herself and knowing that she can play on clay which is probably not her best surface but she is capable of causing some damage and that’s a great feeling to have. It’s all about confidence, it’s knowing what you’re good at and believing in yourself so I’m sure a few wins like that will definitely raise those kinds of feelings. <strong>Thoughts on the form and chances of Petra Kvitova:</strong> <em>KC:</em> For sure, she’s a player that has always been such a clean ball striker. Again for a lot of players their movement on clay is not the easiest but I do think that the way she hits the ball, the way she serves, the way she moves players outside the court, I do think she can beat anybody on the day but they all just have to be able to keep it going throughout the whole tournament, to keep it consistently and that’s something that I really find very interesting is on the day … To win a Grand Slam you have to be good enough on the day and seeing her do so well in Australia and the focus that she has, you can just see when she is playing there is such a calmness on her, in her, that shines out and it is so beautiful in a way to see that. I think it will be a little different on clay for her because her shots won’t have the same impact in a way but I do think she is capable and has a little bit of luck – in a Grand Slam you need a bit of luck and there are enough players who won a Grand Slam who were match point down in the first couple of rounds of the tournament so there are those kind of stories too and for sure, I do think with the experience that she has she is capable of causing damage. <strong>Kim’s view on Karolina Pliskova’s form and coaching set-up:</strong> <em>KC:</em> I have been able to step over to her team and I like the way that she is, I think she has the personality to have a good result. She is laid back, she doesn’t over stress about little things too much and I think with the experience of Conchita and the confidence she has after beating a lot of good players I think has to be very important before a Grand Slam and I think with the weapons that she has she is capable of hitting through anybody, a typical clay court player who likes to bring a lot of balls back and be more defensive, she has the shots to hit through that because she is also flat, she serves well and likes to step into the court and she can mix it up a little bit at times. She has become a little more patient too and I think Conchita’s work is a little advice from somebody who has done so well and enjoyed playing on clay. She has a very open mind, she is a player who will talk to me and ask me things and Conchita and her team pull me in just to hear about experiences and that’s what it’s all about. Nobody knows or has the secret to do it but you can just try to learn from other people’s experiences and work hard and try to use it and that’s what she has been doing it. So she definitely for me is a player who will have a big chance to win it this year. <strong>On being surprised when current players ask for advice:</strong> <em>KC:</em> It surprises me actually. It’s a pleasure, I talked with Simona a little bit when she was in her first French Open final I think it was or the second and you know with Caroline after she … in that situation where you see each other and just to help them in a way and say hang in there, keep working hard, keep doing your thing and your time will come and I’m not saying nothing nobody can know but just sharing your emotions, how I felt. I also felt like oh, maybe it’s never going to happen for me but that maybe one day you think like that and then the next day you go out and work hard again and you try to improve and you try to be better so that you can give yourself an opportunity to be in another Grand Slam final and then mentally that’s when you can use your thoughts and experiences from the year before or however long ago it was, to try not to think like that anymore, to try to not let those nerves take over, to try not to panic out there and some players, they need longer than others. It is what it is and the only thing that you can do is to keep working hard. <strong>On whether Kim would ever consider a full-time coaching role:</strong> <em>KC:</em> It wouldn’t fit within my lifestyle now with the kids and my husband has his basketball, he is a basketball coach and he has a busy life and so I’m enjoying this lifestyle. I do enjoy that I am capable of going to a few tournaments and seeing some people again, whether they are past players or people I know from the tour. It’s nice to be able to do that and still get a feel for the environment once in a while but to travel, I’ve had some requests and players contact me but I can’t do even 15, 20 weeks away from my little kids. Well my oldest isn’t that little anymore but the two youngest are two and a half and five so no, I still like to be around them. <strong>Thoughts on Markéta Vondroušová:</strong> <em>KC:</em> She can cause upsets for sure. I think whatever seeded player plays against her in second or third round or whatever, first round, yes, they are not going to be relieved in a way. She is a tough player and she’s young, energetic, it’s like she doesn’t back down from the situation either, she likes the moment so it will be interesting to see. There are definitely players who, when you look at the draw and you go through the great first matches of the first round and then you look at her, she is definitely a player that you keep an eye on and say oh, I wonder who she’s playing. When is the draw done actually? <strong>On the experience at playing on new Court No. 1 at Wimbledon last week:</strong> <em>KC:</em> It was amazing, it was an amazing experience. The court looks beautiful, for me Wimbledon is a very, very special court because it was exactly ten years before we had the celebration on centre court. It was a last minute decision when they called me, it was actually the day before and I said okay, I’ll help out if I can but it was all organised very well. You see all the Grand Slams, they don’t want to fall behind in renovating and keeping up with the renovations of the locker rooms and the VIP section, everybody is putting a lot of money back into the into infrastructure I feel like and I guess all of the Grand Slams have come to a point where some courts are maybe a little bit outdated and they feel it is time to review them and they have all done it now so I think Wimbledon building a second roof is great because we needed it on Sunday as well because it was raining so it is lucky that we were able to close it. <blockquote><strong>Eurosport's multi-court coverage of Roland Garros begins on Sunday at 9:30.</strong></blockquote> <em>Interview credit: Eurosport</em>

Eurosport's Mats Wilander previews Roland-Garros 2019

24 May 2019

Seven-time Grand Slam Champion and Eurosport's lead Tennis Expert, Mats Wilander, tells us why Roland-Garros 2019 is the most open in recent memory and why, despite pulling out, Nick Kyrgios is good for the game.

On the openness of the men’s draw at Roland-Garros this year:</strong> <em>Mats Wilander:</em> I think the men’s draw is the most open that I can remember. There was always somebody who could beat Rafa themselves but not 15, 20 guys and I feel going into the tournament there are most probably 20 guys that, whoa, these are tough matches on paper. So yeah, I think this younger generation that has come up, they are opposing a serious threat with all of them, Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Auger Alliassime, obviously Zverev to a certain degree still I think is a big threat and Thiem is kind of in between but yes, there are more guys that can worry the best players and there are more match ups that I’m interested in seeing. Like I know that Tsitsipas can hit through these guys and come to the net, I know that Medvedev can hit these heavy low balls that will just drive you insane if it’s on a wet moist cold day in Paris and I think I’m talking about both Novak and Rafa in that situation. I think there are a lot of the guys who feel when the green light is on I can actually go out and threaten these guys even in five sets on clay. At least that’s the way it looks when I see them play. <strong>On the controversies surrounding Nick Kyrgios:</strong> <em>MW:</em> As long as he throws chairs and breaks racquets because he has lost the first set 7-6 and I believe dropped his serve to go down a break in the second, as long as he throws a chair because he’s pissed that he’s losing, I think he’s great for the game. I think he’s great for the game, he suddenly becomes another John McEnroe and obviously at the time McEnroe was good or bad, we weren’t really sure but obviously it turns out that McEnroe was one of the most important players that ever played the game because it welcomed the other side of gentlemen’s tennis so I like that, Kyrgios getting pissed off but I just can’t handle when it looks like he’s not trying and he looks like he’d much rather be somewhere else. That’s where the rules committee have to step in and do what they did in the US Open, literally come down and have a chat to Nick and make him understand that this is not good for the game, it’s obviously not good for you but it is not what tennis is about. You can get angry and that so I think if he keeps it within the lines of just being angry and I don’t mind in between leg shots and all that sort of stuff he does. What’s the difference between in between shots or a crazy drop shot? There’s no difference really, it’s I want to end the point here so that’s a good tactical move. So that part I have no problem with, it’s only when it looks like he’s not trying but even when he engages with the crowd – in Miami he did with a guy – I don’t mind, I think it brings out emotions that makes you want to go and watch soccer, football, you know. It’s emotional, with Nick you want to go and see him because you don’t know what’s going to happen, bad calls are going to annoy or whatever. If he keeps it within the lines of trying hard I love Nick Kyrgios. <strong>On how the other players view Kyrgios’ antics:</strong> <em>MW:</em> The locker room, they love it, they love watching it but they hate losing to it. Absolutely and the funniest thing about Nick Kyrgios, the strangest thing, is we do all get the sense that the players in the locker room, they actually love him as just one of the mates. You always get that. Okay after the match Nadal was annoyed in Acapulco and he said a few things about not respecting or whatever but the handshake against Nick Kyrgios in general is pretty like, I know what you’re going through but hey, you’re a good guy and I think that helps Nick. You do get the feeling that he is a good guy deep down. <strong>On the impact of the weather conditions at Roland-Garros:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Yes, that’s the biggest variable I think compared to the other majors. Obviously the conditions can change so much and for players that can knock confidence. I think at the French Open the conditions play a huge difference and they know that one suits them and the other one is absolutely a nightmare whereas the better you are – I mean obviously Nadal prefers it hot and dry but it depends who he’s playing. If he plays big hitters like Karen Khachanov or Dominic Thiem or somebody, I’m not sure what he’d prefer but him and Novak seems to be able to … Novak’s forehand works when it’s hot and dry because he can spin it up high, his backhand works when it is heavy and soggy because it stays low and he can somehow drive through it, he can get to everything because it’s slower and Nadal, on a heavy court you’re going to have to hit a thousand balls to hit past him. His forehand isn’t a weapon on a heavy court but suddenly it is hard to attack his backhand, you can’t hit it up high on the backhand. So the best players I think look the conditions as a serious advantage - just like they look at wind and air conditions, the top players, due to it being something you work in to becoming an advantage to you. But again, yes, match ups are so important even for them. Obviously they want to play certain players on certain days but it’s less important for them, at least that’s the way I felt when I played there. It doesn’t really matter, I can figure out heavy courts or fast courts depending on who I’m playing, I’ll figure out a way to play them. <strong>On why there are comparatively less upsets at Roland-Garros compared to other Grand Slams:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Well I think that there’s a lot of different reasons but I do think that one reason is that obviously clay is a slower surface and the guys who win on the surface in general do it through consistency with Novak and Rafa and Andy and in many ways Roger Federer through the history – maybe not the last two or three years when he’s been more aggressive but otherwise he has been consistent. When they are winning on other surfaces suddenly he gets an even slower court where he can defend even more than he can on hard courts and on grass, suddenly that gap widens a little bit because again the most consistent player wins on clay in general, so I think that’s what happens. The slower the surface, the better the best players seem to adapt and the bigger the gap is because they just don’t make enough unforced errors to beat themselves and on clay even less so. But keeping that in mind, obviously clay courts have changed over the years and Rafa, we have to say he is one of the most aggressive players to ever play the game in terms of constructing points. Yes, it takes a while but it’s not like he’s hanging out and even though he plays far behind the baseline he is not hanging out waiting for mistakes, I mean he is pushing his opponent around and with more time on a clay court he is able to be more aggressive. So that is why he has been winning and that’s why Novak and Murray have not been winning because on clay Rafa is more aggressive than they can be. <strong>On what it takes for the younger player to transfer their promise into becoming a Grand Slam Champion:</strong> <em>MW:</em> I think the biggest difference is to be able to single out the opponent that you have in front of you. The opponent and the conditions, because you cannot roll over anyone in five sets. You can get on a roll for an hour and be up a set and a break and on a regular tour that match is over but in five sets you know that is not going to happen so to be able to single out the players and the conditions and the environment and how you feel and your strengths and weaknesses a little bit to play every match like it is the last match of the tournament is the biggest difference to me. I mean I’ve had great matches in Grand Slams and the next day I know that I have a day off and then suddenly feel completely different the following day and so it makes, if you know how to handle it it actually makes it easier because you’re not really looking ahead at the other matches, nor your confidence level because confidence changes throughout the four or five hours and I think that’s what the guys who are younger, that’s the hard thing to figure out is the mix between when do I press, when do I hold back, when do I let go in the set because I’m down 4-1 and two breaks, keeping in mind I still have to play another two, that takes experience and belief and if you have early success like I did then suddenly you believe you have somehow found the formula and you are 100% convinced that okay, I know how to play five sets, I just do the same as I did last year or last time. If you haven’t figured it out, you have to have a few wins in a tournament before you believe you have figured it out. <strong>How it is harder for young players playing in an era of three of the game’s greatest players:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Yes, exactly. It is not really … during the match it is obviously very hard but also before the match, what are the tactics going to me? Am I just going to go for it for an hour and see what happens? Well that’s not going to be enough so what are you going to do when you have gone for it and you’ve got no bullets left, what’s your tactic going to be then because you are going to have not just an A and B plan but you’re going to go down to six or seven ways of winning points and that’s a hard thing to grasp before you go on court to have all those things pretty clear in your mind and then solve problems along the way because they keep changing. Even the weather changes over four hours and that’s also a big difference so I think the lead up preparation for a match is quite stressful for players who haven’t been through the grind of winning a Grand Slam or winning a bunch of matches every Grand Slam. <strong>Thoughts on the future of the men’s game when the 'Big 3' have retired:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Yes, I think I worry if they don’t start winning slams before Roger, Rafa and Novak are gone. Then I worry because you need, someone like Tsitsipas or one of the young guys, I can compare them to Boris Becker winning ’85 at Wimbledon, not necessarily me in ’82 at the French Open but Borg was gone and here came another Swede, would never fill his shoes but there was another Swede who played boring tennis so to speak. Then suddenly the matchup of McEnroe and Borg and maybe Connors kind of died off and what happens? Boris Becker comes on the scene and he basically singlehandedly changed the way everybody looked at tennis, changed the way the game was played, he was more power and big serves so I think that rivalries will always appear, I just hope that the likes of Zverev, Tsitsipas and Thiem are winning very, very soon, hopefully this year and then we have those three big great players hang on for a couple of more years and get beaten up a little bit before they hang the racquet up, that will be a perfect scenario. <strong>Thoughts on the form and chances of Alex Zverev:</strong> <em>MW:</em> I’m not sure, I’m a little hesitant to give my full opinion on Zverev. Obviously he has had so far a great career and he is still young. He has got a big game when he plays well, and I think the finals last year in the O2 Arena against Novak that weekend, it gives me all kinds of confidence that he will at some point arrive even in the slams. Whether that’s now, this year or next year or in a couple of years, that’s hard to tell but the only thing that I could question, and that’s not because of Ivan or any other coach that he’s had along the way, is I question trying to have another voice in your ear when you are as young as he is and you have a career so far that is pointing in the right direction the whole time. Do you hire a coach just to do better in the slams when you’re 21 years old, 20 years old or whatever he was? To me, no. I think he is trying to clear his own path and he is doing it his own way and I don’t think he ran into enough problems to start exploiting or exploring a different way of going. He comes from a tennis family, I don't know what was so … why there had to be such a drastic situation, the emergency of firing – obviously Ivan is one of the best coaches of all time but still I don't know, too many voices in a young man’s head is not really my cup of tea I have to say so I’m a little concerned with that, with the desperation of trying to force things rather than just let them come to him. <strong>On the chances of Naomi Osaka winning a 3rd Grand Slam title in a row?</strong> <em>MW:</em> I mean she has a really good chance. I do not see why she should dislike clay courts, I saw her in Madrid and she was able to move around pretty nicely, she could hit through the court and stay in the rallies so apart from her own words at times that clay courts are the hardest surface for her to play on, if she can somehow turn that around in the press and after a round or two come out and say I didn’t realise how good I could play on clay and put some fear into the opponents and put some belief into the fans and media and build her up, I think that she has to be mentioned as one of the three or four favourites, absolutely. <strong>Thoughts on the form of reigning women's champion Simona Halep:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Well I think she most probably goes with a little bit of pressure because she hasn’t won anything else and I think. I mean I’m not one of them for sure, but I think there could be a feeling that Simona Halep’s time is sort of over because the power game on the women’s side is taking over and it’s hard to play like her just like it’s hard to play like Caroline Wozniacki, but I’m not one of them. I believe that she has the mindset that she has now reached number one in the world, she has won a slam, for her now it is about improving her game which I love that she’s saying that so in terms of working on the practice court and certain easy matches, that’s a great attitude to have. The only thing is that once you get into a Grand Slam and something you want to win or do well in, thinking about improving your game has to come second and suddenly it’s about do or die as an athlete. Obviously in sports life or death has to be at the forefront. Like I can’t live with myself if I lose this match because that’s when you make good tactical decisions that come from your heart rather than thinking your way round the court logically, it has to be a feeling that I’m scared of losing and I need to do this right now because it feels right. So it’s hard to go in between the two but I believe she cannot win the one without improving so I think she is on the right track and it will be great if she is still improving, that’s good too. I am not worried about her future but am I worried about her winning the French Open? No, she’s the favourite, I mean she is the favourite to win. <strong>Thoughts on the form and fitness of Caroline Wozniacki:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Well obviously with her we know she is struggling with some arthritis problems and I believe she can’t practice as hard as she used to and when you play a game like her you obviously feel like you have to practice most probably harder than everybody else to get some confidence come back. At the same time, I don't know how many more years she has on tour but I would say some of that lack of practice sometimes plays out in a more relaxed attitude and more willingness to freewheel a little bit and in today’s women’s game that’s probably the way she has to go anyway so I think with all that’s going on it takes some pressure off of her and she could maybe hit out a little bit more and be more aggressive. Now the only problem with the French Open is that that’s the hardest tournament to do that at and be consistent in winning. You can do a match or two doing that but to be freewheeling it the whole time and not have the backup plan of I can run for four hours if I have to, that’s what … If she comes in physically not knowing if she can stay there for four hours then obviously that puts a little pressure on her hoping she is going to hit the ball beautifully and play her opponents rather than run them into the ground so that’s the tough call for her that the Plan B of physically being stronger than your opponent, I’m not sure that that’s still there in her game. <strong>On the frustrations for Wozniacki and impact of her injuries on practice:</strong> MW: Yes, it is obviously frustrating but if you look at somebody like Wozniacki or Simona Halep I think when you look before the tournament, or even Serena Williams, when you look at the draw you have 128 players in there, you have got to pick one who’s the clear favourite, that’s hard to do but when you are looking at the daily schedule and you see Caroline Wozniacki up against Kiki Bertens or Karolina Pliskova, okay, let’s see, well they’re going to have to hit a thousand winners because Caroline will not give you anything for free and if they hit a thousand winners they can have a thousand unforced errors and suddenly Caroline is in with a chance if she’s not making mistakes. So the match up when Caroline is involved, that’s what I look at and say well it’s just one match, we’re not talking about her winning but I am talking about this match in particular and she’s a veteran. She’s won on every court, she’s beaten everybody in every tournament at some point, number one a couple of times – no, in that situation, with or without injuries, she is on the court, she’s fit to play and you look at the mental part of the game and suddenly you have to say, well they are going to have to play a great match to get by someone like Caroline. <strong>On if the game is more entertaining and competitive now or during Mats era:</strong> <em>MW:</em> Yes, I think going into slams I think that has become really important, to have one of the big four in the finals, at least one of them and I think at times it’s been really important to have two out of the four and that has happened so much and we have been so lucky in what we have been wishing for but at the same time I think the early rounds in some of the slams have been sort of one sided, so the anticipation I guess hasn’t been as exciting with having such dominant players as we’ve had but in terms of entertainment value, I don't think you could have bigger entertainment value than watching Novak and Roger and Rafa slug it out on any court at any time, that’s pretty hard to beat but yes, I think it comes down to the generation right behind those three have been beaten up so much that we did have a little bit of a lost generation but the generation that’s coming now, thank God those big three are still playing because watching Tsitsipas take on Federer or Nadal, that for me is some the best interesting tennis I’ve seen since the beginning of Federer/Nadal I have to say. When the young guys who come up against them, we are so lucky to have the big three still playing and being at their best because it’s so interesting to see different generations and the contrasts of style because today’s young players are different, they are completely different in terms of style so the old fashioned one handed backhand coming to the net is suddenly coming back very much into men’s tennis with Tsitsipas leading the charge. <strong>On what Mats would say about his own game on Game, Schett and Mats?</strong> <em>MW:</em> I would have said that it’s a mixture between boring your opponent to death whilst being very thoughtful and I would have said that tactically my game is more complicated than it looks from the outside, at least for me and my opponents but yeah, the obvious opinion you have watching me play is that I win because I don’t make mistakes and some players can’t handle that physically or mentally and either they risk too much, get bored or get tired. I wouldn’t have very high praise in terms of entertainment value, that’s for sure but at the same time which Mats Wilander are we talking about? 1982 at 17 or 1988 as a 24 year old? There’s a huge difference between the two. <strong>On what Mat’s finds harder - being a professional tennis player or being a TV tennis commentator?</strong> <em>MW:</em> Well it depends on how you look at it. You go into work today and there is a chance you could call it losing by making some bad predictions, by stuttering on live TV or trying to make a point but you run out of time and you can weave yourself into a little bit of a hole and then you say something that you shouldn’t have said or that you didn’t really mean but it came out anyway, so there is a chance of losing I suppose, having a bad day rather but when you are playing obviously you go into every match thinking this might be it. So I made all the finals at all the Grand Slams and that makes you able to unpack your bag and you settle into a routine and you get better. I get better as an analyst every day or every round, for the obvious reason that the more I see players playing, the easier it is not to be right but the easier it is to have a pretty firm opinion on what I think is going to happen and then obviously I am wrong and right about 50%, a similar time I guess, I don't know. It is very important than that what I should say is interesting is I am not more of an expert going into the tournament than anybody else, I have no idea. Anyone can make a pick by looking at statistics or whatever and looking at the clay court season where I feel that my strength is because of playing and because of having a passion for the sport, is that I feel I can look at a match, I can look at a match up and I have a pretty good idea not of what the end result is necessarily going to be but what the match is going to look like and what it has to look like for one player to win and what it looks like if the other player’s eyes to win so the tactical part on the day, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what the match needs to look like depending on what results you want from it. That’s when you I think benefit from having been a player that has played in a lot of big matches. <blockquote><strong>Eurosport's multi-court coverage of Roland Garros begins on Sunday at 9:30. </strong><strong>Game, Schett and Mats is broadcast nightly throughout the tournament.</strong></blockquote> <em>Interview credit: Eurosport</em>

WTA moves to Amazon Prime Video from 2020

17 May 2019

Broadcast rights to the WTA Tour are to transfer from BT Sport to Amazon Prime video next year, it has been reported.

According to the Daily Mail, staff working on tennis coverage at BT have been informed that their Sports channels will no longer air WTA tennis after the 2019 season ends.

BT Sport has been broadcasting women's tennis since it's incarnation in 2013, and expanded to cover a larger number of International tournaments from the 2017 season. It has also shown Great Britain's Fed Cup ties for the last three years.</p> <p dir="ltr">Amazon Prime Video will pick up rights to the WTA Tour in 2020 alongside their existing coverage of the ATP Tour and US Open.</p> <p dir="ltr">While the full details of the new deal are not yet known, it's expected that the rights are the same that BT currently has, that is the majority of WTA tour events with just a handful of exceptions.</p> <p dir="ltr">Tennis fans should see an increase in the amount of WTA coverage available to them as Prime Video will be able to offer multi-court coverage at most events, which BT does currently not usually do.</p> <p dir="ltr">The cost of watching tennis in the UK becomes significantly cheaper next year. You'll only need one subscription to Prime Video in order to be able to watch most of both the ATP and WTA tours as well as the US Open</p> <p dir="ltr">If you're currently watching only tennis on BT Sport you'll probably be wanting to cancel your subscription. BT requires a minimum 30 day notice to cancel it's Sport channels, so in order to ensure you're not paying any more than you need to, make a note to cancel on 29 September, 30 days before the WTA season ends in Shenzhen.</p> <p dir="ltr">The Mail also reported that Amazon bid for the rights to show Wimbledon in Germany. The newspaper further speculates that Amazon may be interested in the rights for the French Open and Australian Open, although Eurosport currently has deals to show both of these until at least 2021.</p> <p dir="ltr">We wish all of the affected staff working on tennis at BT Sport all the best, and thank them for the last 6 years of showcasing women's tennis.</p>

Details confirmed for Fed Cup coverage from Bath

28 January 2019

BT Sport and the Lawn Tennis Association have confirmed broadcast and streaming details for the Fed Cup ties held in Bath on 6-9 February.

BT Sport</strong> will be the exclusive TV broadcaster of the first home Fed Cup Tie to be hosted in Great Britain for twenty-six years. With Britain and Poland sharing hosting duties, the Europe/Africa Group 1 Tie will be staged at Bath University from Wednesday 6 to Saturday 9 February. Fans can follow the GB Fed Cup team, led by captain Anne Keothavong and comprising of Johanna Konta, Katie Boulter, Heather Watson, Harriet Dart and Katie Swan, exclusively live on British television pn BT Sport 2. All of team GB's matches will also be streamed live on the <a title="British Tennis Facebook page" href="https://en-gb.facebook.com/britishtennislta/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">British Tennis Facebook page</a>. Great Britain have been placed in Group A alongside Hungary, Greece and Slovenia, whilst Serbia, Croatia, Turkey and Georgia will compete in Group B. Nations will play three round-robin ties on Wednesday to Friday, and Great Britain must finish top of their group in order to secure a place in Saturday's play-off, where they would face the winner of Group B. Clare Balding will host BT Sport’s live coverage of the Great Britain matches - two singles and one doubles - each day of the group stages, with the play off for the overall winner on the final day. Clare will be joined for analysis and commentary by current British player Laura Robson, former British number 1 Sam Smith, and Jo Durie who represented Great Britain in the last Fed Cup Tie to be held in the UK. Simon Green, head of BT Sport said “The Fed Cup always generates fantastic support and atmosphere and we’re looking forward to bringing all of the GB action to viewers at home. We have put together our own top team packed full of knowledge and experience who will bring great insight and analysis along with all the excitement and atmosphere to our customers live from Bath in February.” Scott Lloyd, LTA Chief Executive said “We are excited to partner with BT Sport in bringing the Fed Cup closer to fans for the first time in more than a quarter of a century. BT Sport are already home of WTA and seems only fitting they should follow our Fed Cup journey as we aim to get back into the world group. This is a key part of our new strategy to open up tennis by showcasing our women’s team and bringing world-class tennis to new and existing British fans.” "I am also delighted to confirm that we will stream all of Great Britain's matches from Centre Court during the week on our Facebook page. This initiative is a key part of our new strategy to open up tennis by showcasing our women’s team and bringing world-class tennis to new and existing British fans.” Great Britain have been placed in Group A alongside Hungary, Greece and Slovenia, whilst Serbia, Croatia, Turkey and Georgia will compete in Group B. Nations will play three round-robin ties (Wednesday-Friday) and Great Britain must finish top of their group in order to secure a place in Saturday's play-off, where they would face the winner of Group B. The winner of Saturday's play-off will secure a qualification spot for the Fed Cup World Group II Play-Offs in April. The winning nation in Bath will be joined by the winner of the same zonal event in Poland, who is co-hosting the competition.

Australian Open 2019: your essential guide

13 January 2019

The first grand slam of 2019 is just around the corner and here's how you can watch it all with Eurosport.

This year's Australian Open sees no less than eight Brits in the main draw.

<b>Kyle Edmund</b> is the only seeded Brit. Defending semi final points from last year, he has drawn Tomas Berdych in the first round. <strong>Cameron Norrie </strong>will play Taylor Fritz, who he beat last week in Auckland. <strong>Andy Murray </strong>may play the final match of his career with Roberto Bautista Agut on Monday, after announcing his retirement plans. Murray hopes to retire at Wimbledon but admits he may not make it that far. <strong>Dan Evans</strong> came through qualifying and plays fellow qualifier Tatsuma Ito in the first round, likely to face Roger Federer in the second. <strong>Johanna Konta </strong> is the only Brit not playing on Monday, she will face Ajla Tomljanovic - who beat her in Brisbane - on Tuesday. <strong>Heather Watson </strong> will open against 31st seed Petra Martic, and <strong>Katie Boulter </strong>will play Ekaterina Makarova. <strong>Harriet Dart</strong> qualified and has drawn Maria Sharapova, they will begin proceedings on Rod Laver Arena on Monday.

How to watch the "AO" on telly.</h2> <strong>Live coverage of the Australian Open is exclusive to Eurosport in the UK and Ireland.</strong> For the first time Eurosport will host their coverage entirely from Melbourne. Matt Smith joins the team as a new presenter alongside Catherine Whitaker and Annabel Croft. Mats Wilander and Barbara Schett will also present coverage and host their daily roundup Game Schett and Mats. John McEnroe will return as the Commissioner of Tennis. Commentators will include Chris Bradnam, Simon Reed, Frew McMillan, Guy McCrea, Jo Durie and Sam Smith as well as most of those already mentioned above. There will also be appearances by Boris Becker, Marion Bartoli and Patrick Mouratoglou. The live coverage starts at midnight every day with coverage on Eurosport 1 and 2, plus every court covered live on Eurosport Player. <a href="https://amzn.to/2VBMZi2">You can currently get Eurosport Player via Amazon Prime Video Channels for just 1p/month for 6 months.</a>

Following the live coverage every day Eurosport 1 will show replays and highlights for the rest of the day. Game Schett and Mats will be at 15:30, repeated at 19:30 and 23:30. Matches will also be available on demand on Eurosport Player. <strong>BBC Two</strong> will have daily highlights from the third round onwards, from Saturday 19 January. <strong>

📻 BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have commentary every day throughout the Australian Open. Tennis Breakfast will be on Sports Extra daily from 7:00, and there will be selected commentary of day session matches also.

How to watch tennis on telly in 2019

23 December 2018, updated 1 January 2019

With just under a week to go until tennis returns to television screens for the 2019, here's our guide to watching tennis next year.

The biggest change is with ATP coverage. Sky Sports ended 27 years of tennis broadcasting at the ATP Finals in November, and all of their past content is now on <a href="https://amzn.to/2QNRxmH">Amazon Prime Video</a>. Here are the basics on who's covering what this coming year. <h2>

Grand Slams</h2> The first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open, is exclusive to Eurosport with some highlights in the second week on the BBC. Eurosport also have the French Open in full; there is single-court-coverage on ITV. Wimbledon is shown free on the BBC with all courts streamed online. The US Open is on Amazon Prime Video. <h2>

ATP Tour</h2> To watch most of the ATP tour, there is a simple choice of two streaming services: Tennis TV and Amazon Prime Video. Tennis TV is the ATP's streaming service and has coverage from every ATP event. Amazon Prime Video has <a href="https://amzn.to/2ECBjVX">all of the Masters 1000, 500 and thirteen 250 events***</a> including Queen's and Eastbourne, as well as the Next Gen Finals and ATP Finals. The ATP events in Brisbane and Sydney at the start of the year are on Eurosport - note that Tennis TV only have two matches per day from these events. Eurosport also have coverage from Geneva. Queen's is covered by the BBC who also have the day matches at the ATP Finals. FreeSports have shown some ATP 250 events in the past but none are confirmed for 2019 yet. Eurosport no longer has coverage of Doha. The ATP only make doubles matches available to broadcasters at Masters 1000 tournaments. <h2>

WTA Tour</h2> There's a simple choice for most of the WTA events too: WTA TV or BT Sport. WTA TV has multi-court coverage from all but ten WTA events - the notable exceptions are Nottingham and Zhuhai. You can also watch WTA 125 events on WTA TV. BT Sport will have single-court coverage from all Premier and Mandatory, plus most International competitions, except those in the UK - BT does have Zhuhai. The tournaments in Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne are covered by Eurosport, the latter also getting some coverage on the BBC. Eurosport also shows Nuremberg and Linz instead of BT Sport. <h2>Other events</h2> The Hopman Cup and World Tennis Challenge in Australia are both shown by Eurosport. The Laver Cup is on Amazon Prime Video. No UK broadcaster has picked up the Mubadala World Tennis Championships, usually considered the start of the season between Christmas and New Year; it was previously on Eurosport. At the time of writing it's unknown if any broadcaster will show Davis Cup and Fed Cup rounds, but those involving Great Britain have been shown for free on Facebook recently, and they are also available on the Davis Cup and Fed Cup websites. ATP Challenger tournaments are streamed for free online, the new ones in Glasgow and Loughborough were on the BBC Sport website in 2018 too. <!--more--> <h2>

Deciding what to subscribe to</h2> The cheapest way to ensure you get the coverage from as much tennis as possible is to subscribe to Tennis TV (£89.99) and WTA TV (£58.60) for the year and then the other services for as short a time as possible. These would be Eurosport Player for one month (£6.99)* for the Hopman Cup, Australian ATP events and Australian Open. Another two months of Eurosport Player will see you through the French Open and British grass court WTA events. You'd only need one month of Amazon Prime Video (£5.99) for the US Open and Laver Cup (you may be able to get a 30-day free trial). The total cost comes to £175.55*. If you are interested in other sports it may be more cost effective for you to subscribe to BT Sport instead of WTA TV, and Eurosport Player for the full year instead of just the months they show tennis. You might already get Eurosport 1 and 2 with a pay-TV service. BT Sport is heavily discounted if you are a BT Broadband subscriber. An Amazon Prime Video subscription for the year might be better than Tennis TV if you don't expect to watch every ATP tournament as there are other benefits to a Prime subscription. Remember you'll need a TV licence to watch BT Sport, Eurosport, the BBC and ITV in the UK, even online. Streaming services purchased in the UK can be watched like-for-like within the EU, at least as long as we are still in it.

Updates: Since this article was first published the monthly subscription price of Eurosport Player has risen from £6.99 to £9.99. All prices correct as of 1 January 2019. Note: if you subscribe through the mobile app you cannot access Eurosport Player on your desktop. Updated to include link to Amazon Prime Video tournaments. Updated to add ATP Geneva to Eurosport broadcasts.</em>



2018

Are these the ATP 250 tournaments on Amazon Prime in 2019?

4 November 2018

Since this article was published, Amazon Prime Video have published a list of all of their tournaments broadcast in the UK.

Amazon Prime have the UK and Ireland broadcast rights to twelve ATP 250 tournaments in 2019, as part of their deal with the ATP, but until now there has been no list of exactly which events this includes.

However, Eurosport recently announced as similar rights deal in France</a>, so does this provide any clues to which tournaments will be shown by Amazon in the UK? There are thirteen ATP 250 events on Eurosport's list, but Amazon already showed one of those this year, so there's a good chance the other twelve tournaments on Eurosport in France are those that will be on Amazon Prime Video here. The broadcast rights to these ATP 250 events are all handled by sports marketing company IMG on behalf on ATP Media. IMG also do the rights for Masters 1000s and ATP 500s. IMG's website shows that they sell distribute fourteen ATP 250 tournaments, which includes two further events in Lyon and Metz which French Eurosport does not have rights to, and omits one event that is on Eurosport's list - Sofia. Lastly, at the end of 2016 there were thirteen tournaments in IMG's ATP 250 portfolio. Two of these have since been discontinued; Pune, Antalya and Lyon were new in 2017 and Shenzhen has been added since. Therefore we can make a good guess that the ATP 250 events being shown by Amazon Prime Video in 2019 are as follows: <ul>

<li>Maharashtra Open, Pune, from 31 December 2018</li> <li>Sofia Open, Sofia, from 4 February***</li> <li>US Men's Clay Court Championships, Houston, from 8 April</li> <li>Hungarian Open, Budapest, from 22 April</li> <li>Estroil Open, Estoril from 29 April</li> <li>Lyon Open, Lyon, from 20 May**</li> <li>Antalya Open, Antalya, from 24 June</li> <li>Eastbourne International, Eastbourne, from 24 June*</li> <li>Swiss Open, Gstaad, from 22 July</li> <li>Abierto Los Cabos, Cabo San Lucas, from 29 July</li> <li>Winston-Salem Open, Winston-Salem, from 19 August</li> <li>Moselle Open, Metz, from 16 September**</li> <li>Shenzhen Open, Shenzhen, from 23 September</li> <li>Chengdu Open, Chengdu, from 23 September</li> <li>European Open, Antwerp, from 14 October</li> </ul> * Amazon Prime Video already had the rights to show the Eastbourne International in a separate deal. ** Two events in France are not listed on French Eurosport's website as these are not made available by IMG in France. *** The Sofia Open is listed as being broadcast by Eurosport in France but it not on IMG's website. It's possible that French Eurosport have negotiated this separately or that IMG have taken over rights handling for this event recently. Amazon Prime Video will also broadcast all ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, ATP 500 events and the ATP Tour Finals in 2019, as well as the US Open, ATP Next Gen Finals and Laver Cup.



US Open: your essential guide

23 August 2018

It's the last grand slam of the year and it's all change when it comes to watching on the telly... or not the telly as it may be, as Amazon Prime Video face their biggest test yet.

The Brits with direct entry into the main draw are <strong>Andy Murray</strong>,<strong> Kyle Edmund</strong>,<strong> Cameron Norrie </strong>and<strong> Johanna Konta.

Murray and Norrie are in the same quarter and all three British men are in the same half of the draw which is headed up by top seed Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray's first match will be against Australian Jack Duckworth. Cameron Norrie plays another Aussie, Jordan Thompson. Kyle Edmund opens against Paolo Lorenzi. This half of the draw will play their first round matches on Monday. Johanna Konta will play on Tuesday. She is in the opposite side of the draw to top seed Simona Halep, but faces 8th seed Caroline Garcia in the first round. <strong>Heather Watson</strong> made the main draw by beating Katie Swan in the final round of qualifying; Watson plays Ekaterina Makarova on Monday. Also hoping to get through qualifying at the start of the week were Liam Broady, who beat Jay Clarke in the first round, and Katie Boulter who lost to Naomi Broady, who then went out in the second round. Harriet Dart, Gabriella Taylor and Katy Dunne all lost first round.

It's the biggest tennis event that Amazon have covered, after they brought us the Next Gen Finals last year and coverage from Queen's and Eastbourne in the Spring. Prime costs £5.99 per month for just video; £7.99 per month or £79 a year for the full features including music, photo storage, online books and free delivery of Amazon orders. New users of Prime are eligible for a <a href="https://amzn.to/2NgkPod">30-day free trial</a>. If you already have Prime you don't need to purchase anything extra. Catherine Whitaker and Karthi Gnanasegaram will be the main presenters, joined in the studio by Daniela Hatuchova and Greg Rusedski. Annabel Croft, Mark Petchey, Jimmy Connors and Jim Courier are added to the line-up of studio experts, while Anna Whiteley will be reporting on-site. Commentary comes from Robbie Koenig, Nick Lester, Arvind Parmar, Barry Cowan and Sue Thearle.

The live coverage starts with build-up at 15:30 every day, with dedicate streams for the main show courts, say Amazon. There will be five live streams available for the first six days, after which it will increase to seven. This year there is a night session on both Arthur Ashe Stadium and the new Louis Armstrong court for the first time, from midnight.

There will be highlights from the day session available from 21:00, along with a replay of the top match. Full highlights will be available from 7:00 in the morning, with one match per day available on demand. Replays will be made available of all men's and women's singles matches from the quarter finals onwards. Qualifying is not officially available to watch anywhere in the UK and Ireland as Amazon's deal does not include it. Amazon said they were not able to provide fully produced coverage. Amazon also have the rights to ATP Masters 1000 and 500 events next year - currently shown by Sky Sports (except Queen's) - as well as twelve ATP 250 events. <strong>

📻 BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have commentary every day throughout the US Open.

Wimbledon 2018

30 June 2018

It's time for the biggest tennis event of the year - on grass at least. Wimbledon 2018 starts on Monday 2 July, and here is your essential guide on where and when to watch.

Monday's Centre Court action will begin with defending men's champion Roger Federer playing Dustin Lajovic at 13:00, but play starts on other courts at 11:30. Brits playing singles on Monday will include Liam Broady, Cam Norrie, Harriet Dart and Katie Swan. Britain's Naomi Broady will take on defending champion Garbine Muguruza on Tuesday at 13:00. It'll be a bumper day for Brits with Kyle Edmund, Jay Clarke, Andy Murray, Johanna Konta, Katy Dunne, Heather Watson, Gabriella Taylor and Katie Boulter all in action.

Live coverage will be on BBC One and BBC Two in HD.</strong> The BBC Red Button 🔴 will have up to 6 matches available on terrestrial, cable and satellite, with one of these in HD on satellite and cable. Every court will be available to watch on the BBC Sport website and through the app on smart TVs.

The BBC's coverage will be anchored by Sue Barker, with commentary from Vijay Amritraj, Chris Bradnam, James Burridge, Andrew Castle, Matt Chilton, Andrew Cotter, Annabel Croft, Barry Davies, Katherine Downes, Jo Durie, Peter Fleming, Paul Hand, John Inverdale, John Lloyd, Dan Lobb, Ronald McIntosh, David Mercer, Nick Mullins, Peter Odgers, Mark Petchey, Louise Pleming, Simon Reed, Chanda Rubin, Gigi Salmon, Sam Smith, Liz Smylie and Mel South. Lee McKenzie, Rishi Persad, Reshmin Chowdhury, Patrick Gearey and Catherine Whitaker are also part of the BBC's coverage with interviews and reports. Centre Court matches will be available in <strong>Ultra HD</strong> for the first time this year, on Sky Q and BBC iPlayer for those with suitable equipment.

*BBC One coverage will be interrupted by FIFA World Cup on Tuesday 3 July. Coverage on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 July is yet to be confirmed depending on which World Cup quarter-finals are shown on the BBC. Live coverage each evening is subject to change depending on the success of British players as in previous years when coverage has continued on BBC One past 18:00, so stay in touch with @Tennis_UKTV on twitter for the latest updates. Clare Balding has <strong>Today at Wimbledon</strong> every night on BBC Two, repeated on a loop overnight on BBC Red Button 🔴. All doubles and wheelchair finals will be on BBC One or Two also in addition to the men's and women's singles finals. Eurosport will have nightly highlights and will also show the men's and women's singles finals live.

📻 BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra</strong> will have commentary every day throughout The Championships. Eleanor Oldroyd and Tony Livesey present daily coverage with Karthi Gnanasegaram and Dot Davies reporting. Russell Fuller leads the commentary team with David Law, Gigi Salmon, Vassos Alexander, Iain Carter, Alastair Eykyn, Sara Orchard, Jonathan Overend, Delyth Lloyd and Catherine Whitaker. John McEnroe hosts the 6-Love-6 phone-in again on Thursday 5 July and Thursday 13 July at 19:30.

Rights news:

In the week following Wimbledon, FreeSports will show the ATP tournament in Bastad, Sweden. World Team Tennis starts on the night of Sunday 15 July, and there is free streaming at www.wtt.com/tv

Surbiton Trophy and rights news

2 June 2018

While the French Open continues, the grass season begins in Surbiton this week.

It's a combined ATP Challenger and ITF Women's event in Surbiton, with loads of Brits in action, and you can watch many main draw matches online. ATP Challenger events have official live streaming at http://livestream.com/ATP

Some rights news to update you on now... Eurosport confirmed they have the rights to the three British grass court WTA events in the lead up to Wimbledon. They'll have coverage of Nottingham from Thursday 14 June, then the full week in Birmingham, and then Eastbourne which will also be on the BBC. The BBC announced that they will also have ATP matches from Eastbourne this year, which along with Queen's will be available on Amazon Prime also. As reported last week, FreeSports will be showing 's-Hertogenbosch where Andy Murray is still scheduled to start his comeback. There have been media reports that Amazon Prime have picked up a 2-year global deal for the Laver Cup which returns in September.

How to watch tennis in 2018: Amazon Prime enter the arena

17 November 2017

Television rights in the UK are changing again, with Amazon picking up some huge tournaments next year, and more a year later.

To make sure you can find all the tennis over the next two years, here's a viewing guide with everything you need to know. <h2>

What are Amazon going to show?</h2> The US Open is to be streamed by Amazon Prime Video in 2018, it was announced this week, taking over from Eurosport who showed the fourth grand slam exclusively for the last two years.

While Eurosport extended its deal to show the US Open across Europe for another five years, crucially this excluded the UK and Ireland, where Amazon Prime Video will be the only way for fans to see action from Flushing Meadows. In a separate deal with the LTA, Amazon also picked up non-exclusive rights to ATP matches at Queen's and Eastbourne in 2018. The pre-Wimbledon tournaments were also previously shown by Eurosport. Earlier in the year Amazon grabbed the rights to show the ATP World Tour from 2019. Taking over from Sky Sports, they will stream all Masters 1000 events, all of the 500 series, and twelve 250 tournaments from 2019. Amazon will continue to stream the ATP's Next Gen Finals, which was their first foray into tennis broadcasting this year. The ATP deal means 2018 will be the last year that tour tennis is broadcast by Sky, who had sub-licenced US Open rights from Eurosport until 2015. <h2>

What about the rest?</h2> Eurosport will continue to broadcast the Australian Open in full with highlights on the BBC, and the French Open which is also on ITV, as well as Wimbledon daily highlights and live finals.

Wimbledon continues to be free to air across the BBC, who also retain their rights to Queen's and the WTA matches at Eastbourne, as well as one singles match per day at the ATP Finals. In addition, the BBC has committed to increasing its coverage of wheelchair tennis as part of its pledge to broadcast 1,000 more hours of sport online in 2018. They also have Great Britain's Davis Cup ties. BT Sport have the rights to all WTA Premier and Mandatory WTA tournaments and the majority of Internationals. FreeSports have the bulk of ATP 250 tournaments which they picked up when they launched in September. A handful of 250s and Internationals are expected to remain on Eurosport. The LTA said that further rights announcements for WTA Birmingham and Nottingham, as well as ATP matches at Eastbourne - which will also be on Amazon - would be made in the coming weeks. Coverage on Tennis TV and WTA is not affected by the Amazon deal, although Queen's and some ATP 250 and WTA International tournaments will be missing on both where they do not hold the rights. WTA TV includes the 125k level not show on TV. ATP Challengers are streamed for free by Livestream. <h2>

How much does it all cost?</h2> Amazon Prime Video currently costs £5.99 per month for video content only; the full Amazon Prime package which includes photo storage, music content, early deals and delivery benefits is £7.99 per month or £79 for the year. New customers can get a 30-day free trial. Eurosport Player can be included in Amazon Prime for £4.99 extra per month or is £29.99 for a year standalone - there are regular offers of £14.99 for the year. For the final year of Sky Sports coverage, you can subscribe to Sky Sports Action and Arena (counted as one channel for billing purposes) from £18 on top of a Sky TV subscription, or £33.99 per month through Now TV. BT Sport is free with BT Broadband or £25.99 a month standalone. Both are also available through Virgin Media cable. Tennis TV is currently £9.99 a month or £89.99 for the year. WTA TV is priced at £7.81 monthly, or £58.60 for an annual pass. Note neither shows the four Grand Slams. I've done the calculations and the <strong>cheapest way to watch all the tennis</strong> in 2018 announced so far is a year's Tennis TV + WTA TV + Eurosport Player (on the £14.99 offer) + three months of Amazon Prime Video (video only) for Eastbourne, the US Open and Next Gen Finals, = a total of £181.55. Remember that Sky and BT give you coverage of other sports so they may be a better deal for you overall if you've interests besides tennis. Davis Cup and Fed Cup streaming will cost extra, although Davis Cup World Group ties and those involving Great Britain are expected to be shown for free on the BBC. Lastly, I've deliberately not included non-tour events such as Hopman Cup, Tie Break Tens and the Laver Cup in the above. <em>

Update: This article was edited to correct some incorrect maths.</em>

2017

ATP 250 tennis coming to FreeSports

5 September 2017

New channel FreeSports has confirmed it will show twenty five ATP 250 events a year, mostly live.

The channel launched on Sky and Freeview on 31 August, and will show five events before the end of this year, beginning with the Moselle Open in Metz. FreeSports will also be available on Freesat from 11 September, in time for its first tennis tournament, and is currently negotiating with Virgin Media for carriage. Freeview viewers will need to ensure they are able to pick up DVB-T2 signals which are broadcast to 75% of the country, and while the channels is not broadcast in high definition, HD equipment will be required. The new channel's owners hope to broadcast in HD on satellite in the future if they get the viewing figures to support the cost. FreeSports owners are Premier Media, who operate the Premier Sports subscription channel on Sky. Its other sports include football, ice hockey, NASCAR and rugby league. Eurosport have the rights to the other ATP 250 events, including St. Petersburg in the same week as Metz.

US Open viewing guide

25 August 2017

The US Open is now upon us, with the main draw starting Monday. Here's where to watch all of the live coverage.

Eurosport 1 and 2 will be live from the US Open every day from the first round on Monday 28 August to the finals on the weekend of 9-10 September. For the second year, Eurosport have exclusive coverage of the US Open. There is no live coverage or highlights anywhere else Live coverage begins at 15:30 each day of the first week on Eurosport 1. Eurosport 2 joins later on each day, after the live coverage of La Vuelta a Espana finishes. Play starts at 16:00 every day from Monday 28 August to Wednesday 6 September from the first round to the quarter-finals. Night sessions on the show courts start at midnight. There is no day session on Thursday 7 September with the women's semi-finals at midnight. On Friday 8 September, either the mixed or men's doubles final is at 17:00, men's semi-finals at 21:00. Saturday 9 September is the mixed or men's doubles final that wasn't played Friday, at 17:00, and the women's final at 21:00. The tournament concludes on Sunday 10 September with the women's doubles final at 17:00 and men's final at 21:00. Up to twelve court feeds will be available on Eurosport Player every day, to complement the main coverage on Eurosport 1 and 2. Every morning at 8:30, Mats Wilander presents the US Open: Wake Up Call with an update of the matches overnight, this is repeated at 15:00. Full match replays will be shown on Eurosport 1 during the day between 8:00 and 15:00, and extended highlights will be on Eurosport 2 at 7:30. There are six British players in action. Andy Murray, Kyle Edmund, qualifier Cameron Norrie, Johanna Konta and Heather Watson all play their first round matches on Monday. Aljaz Bedene will start on Tuesday.

Streaming: the new way to watch live tennis

1 August 2017

Within the last week there have been two huge announcements in the world of tennis broadcasting, and fans in the UK will have to make some big decisions about how they are going to watch tennis in the next couple of years.

On Thursday, the WTA and its broadcast partner Perform Group launched WTA TV and today it was revealed that Amazon have the UK TV rights to the ATP World Tour from 2019. Since WTA pulled out of Tennis TV in October 2017, there has been no online streaming of WTA tournaments around the world. Since then, BT Sport has been the only option for British fans of the WTA Tour. That was until WTA TV started streaming live matches last week on its website. There's been no big launch yet but for £7.81 per month or £58.60 per year you can already watch multiple matches from different courts and tournaments at once, with rewind and replay options. Initial feedback has been very positive, and the few people who have told me they have signed up have so far been impressed with the coverage. There's no mobile app yet but I understand one is in the works. BT Sport will continue to have the broadcast rights for the WTA. A BT Sport subscription includes coverage of other sports and entertainment channel AMC, so if you are also interested in those things it may be worth the extra money, at between £22 and £28 a month via Sky or as part of a BT broadband package. Unfortunately, BT Sport don't show every WTA match they could. Very rarely do BT have two matches from the same tournament simultaneously, when a British player is on an outside court. They are restricted by what the WTA provides them on the world feed for some tournaments. I have heard that BT is going to up its game once again in 2018, which it will need to do to compete with WTA TV for tennis fans Meanwhile, over on the ATP side of things, Sky Sports' rights to screen ATP Masters 1000s and 500s events have been up in the air for sometime, as they were due for renewal next year. There had been rumours that Amazon was among those interested in taking those rights for, and today it was reported that Sky had been outbid and 2018 will be their last ATP season. No surprises - Sky's interest in tennis has been clearly waning since they handed back their US Open rights to Eurosport at the end of 2015. Sky rebranded their sports channels last month and with dedicated channels for football, cricket, golf and Formula 1, it's clear where their focus is. If you want to watch ATP tennis alongside those, it will cost you more from the end of next year. Details of the new service from Amazon are still sketchy. It's not yet known exactly how their coverage will be compiled. Live tennis will be part of Amazon Video, which currently costs £5.99 a month on its own or as part of Amazon Prime for £7.99 per month or £79 for the year. Tennis TV is the ATP's streaming service which has been running for a number of years. Crucially it also includes coverage of ATP 250 events, many of which are not shown anywhere else, and aren't in the current Sky or future Amazon deal. Tennis TV is currently £9.99 per month or £89.99 for a year. Grand Slams aren't included in any of the four packages mentioned above. Wimbledon is on the BBC, while the Australian, French and US Opens are brilliantly covered by Eurosport, with multi-court coverage alongside Eurosport 1 and 2 on Eurosport Player. At the time of writing this is currently £6.99 or £29.99 for a year. Eurosport currently shows some ATP 250s and a number of WTA Internationals that aren't on BT Sport. Eurosport also had the British grass court season alongside the BBC who extended their Eastbourne and Queen's contracts to 2024. ITV has secondary rights to the French Open. It's also been reported that a new channel called FreeSports, launching at the end of this morning, will be covering tennis but there has been no further information on exactly what will be shown. With WTA TV and Tennis TV - and Amazon in 2019 - you'll need a device such as Google Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV Stick to watch streaming services on your telly.

ATP tennis moving to new Sky Sports channels

10 July 2017, updated 18 July 2017

Sky have announced they are reorganising their sports channels, with the addition of two new channels from 18 July.

There will be new dedicated channels for Premier League, other football, golf and cricket alongside the existing F1 channel, plus two new channels called Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Arena which will cover tennis among other sports. The idea is that viewers will be able to pick and choose the sports they want to watch, and won't have to pay for the full set of Sky Sports channels if they don't want to, which seems fair enough. The full package of Sky Sports channels is the same price as it is now at £27.50 per month. For those who want to pick and choose their channels, they can take one at £18 per month, two at £22 and three at £26. A third new channel, Sky Sports Main Event, will show the best of the coverage from the other channels, completing the line-up alongside Sky Sports Mix and Sky Sports News which are available to all Sky subscribers at present. Sky have clarified that Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Arena are treated as one channel for billing purposes, so if you are a fan of tennis and only want to watch tennis, you would need to subscribe to Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Arena, at £18 a month, rather than the full Sky Sports package at £27.50 per month. Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Arena will also show other sports including rugby union, rugby league, boxing, netball, darts, NFL, WWE and GAA. ATP tennis only fills 19 weeks of the Sky Sports schedule this year, so I can understand it would not make sense for a dedicated tennis channel because it would not be cost effective to run. But it would be better if Sky could commit to their tennis coverage being on just one channel so that fans don't need to subscribe to both Action and Arena. Tennis fans cried out loud to Sky when there was a very real prospect of losing Eurosport from their screens back in February, and record viewing figures for the Austrlian Open prove that tennis does has value and rights should be attractive for broadcasters to hold. However, the rights to ATP tennis are up for grabs for the 2019 season onwards, and other broadcasters including BT, Eurosport and ITV are said to be interested in snatching them from Sky. Sky Sports have covered tennis since they launched, so it would be disappointing if they decide not to continue investing in tennis coverage, although they handed their subcontracted US Open rights back to Eurosport in 2016. It's understood that Sky Sports 1 will become Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports 2 will become the Premier League channel. Dedicated football, cricket and golf channels replace Sky Sports 3, 4 and 5. If you currently subscribe to the full Sky Sports package, you can downgrade to receive just the channels you want from 18 July when they launch. I understand that the new channels will be available on Virgin Media and Sky Ireland, but customers of both will only be able to subscribe to all of the channels together. BT TV - which currently only carries Sky Sports 1 and 2 - will get Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Extra, a channel made up of content from the other channels.

<em>Updated 18 July with clarification on pricing of Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Arena.</em>

Where to follow tennis in July

1 July 2017

This month sees Wimbledon bring the grass season to an end, followed by the early stages of the US hard court swing.

Wimbledon will be free to air across the BBC throughout the two weeks of The Championships. Coverage starts most days on BBC Two from 11:30 and BBC One joining between 13:45 and 18:00. There is additional coverage on the BBC's red button, which has six streams on satellite, and up to fifteen courts are available to watch online. Eurosport also have daily highlights and the finals live. There are no less than twelve Brits in the main singles draws. The men's draw is headed up by top seed Andy Murray who is joined by Kyle Edmund and Aljaz Bedene. Brydan Klein, Cameron Norrie and James Ward were awarded wildcards, while Alex Ward sucessfully made his way through pre-qualifying and qualifying to join the main draw. Johanna Konta is the seventh seed, and in the women's draw she is joined by Heather Watson, Naomi Broady, Laura Robson and Katie Boulter who were all awarded wildcards. Following Wimbledon, Aljaz Bedene is the only Brit in action at the time of writing - he'll be in Umag, Croatia, which - along with two other 250s in Newport, Rhode Island and Bastad, Sweden - can be watched on Tennis TV. The WTA tournament in Bucharest, Hungary will be on BT Sport. There is also a WTA tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland. In the week beginning 24 July, Bedene will compete in Hamburg, Germany and Kyle Edmund will be in Atlanta, Georgia. These, and a third 250 in Gstaad will be on Tennis TV. WTA tournaments in Bastad and Nanchang, China will be on BT Sport. Starting on 31 July, the ATP 500 tournament in Washington DC will be shown by Sky Sports; Kyle Edmund is competing there. There are ATP 250s in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and Kitzbuhel, Germany. The WTA tour goes to Stanford, California for a Premier level tournament that Johanna Konta won last year. There is also an International in Washington DC alongside the ATP tournament. Both WTA tournaments are not yet confirmed but thought to also be on BT Sport. One notable exception to the entry lists is Dan Evans, who is provisionally suspended after testing positive for cocaine in April.

Where to follow tennis in June

31 May 2017

June is the start of the grass season, with tournaments in the UK in the build-up to Wimbledon, but there is the French Open to complete first.

As we head into June, there are only two Brits left in the French Open singles. Andy Murray and Kyle Edmund will be hoping to make it beyond the second round. Daily live coverage from Roland-Garros is on Eurosport 1 and 2 with multi-court coverage and a press conference stream on Eurosport Player. The best of each day's action is live and free-to-air on ITV4, with the finals on ITV on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th June. From Monday 12th June, Eurosport cover the ATP tournament in Stuttgart, and the WTA Aegon Open in Nottingham all week featuring Johanna Konta and Heather Watson. BT Sport are showing the women's matches from the Ricoh Open in s'Hertogenbosch; the men's matches will only be on Tennis TV, and Aljaz Bedene is competing there. Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans have been given wildcards for the Aegon Championships, joining Andy Murray at Queen's Club in London, from 19th June on Eurosport and the BBC. Eurosport will also show the Aegon Classic in Birmingham where Johanna Konta and Heather Watson are on the entry list. In the same week, Sky Sports will show ATP Halle where Bedene is third alternate at the time of writing, and BT Sport will broadcast WTA Mallorca. In the week before Wimbledon, starting 26th June, Eastbourne will be shown on Eurosport, with WTA matches also on the BBC. Edmund, Bedene, Evans and Konta are competing there. There is also an ATP event in Antalya, Turkey which will be on Tennis TV only. For the first time, Wimbledon qualifiers from Roehampton will be broadcast on the BBC after they, with ESPN, reached a deal with the AELTC. Full details have yet to be announced but it is expected to be shown online. Wimbledon is a week later than in last year's tennis calendar, starting on 3 July. ATP London (Queen's) and ATP Eastbourne will be blocked on Tennis TV for UK viewers.

Where to follow tennis in May

28 April 2017

The clay court season continues in the build-up to the French Open.

May begins with ATP 250 tournaments in Estroil, Munich, and Istanbul. Kyle Edmund competes in Estoril, while Aljaz Bedene travels to Istanbul hot on his success in Budapest and two Challenger tour wins before that. The tournament in Estoril is on Eurosport from Tuesday, while Munich and Istanbul are available on Tennis TV. The WTA tour starts May with Internationals in Prague and Rabat, with Heather Watson qualifying in the former. On Thursday 4 May, Johanna Konta is one of the top players competing in short format Tie Break Tens, which for the first time will be broadcast free-to-air on Dave. Two weeks of ATP Masters and WTA Mandatory tournaments begin on Saturday 6 May. Johanna Konta, Andy Murray, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund can be seen in Madrid, with Aljaz Bedene hoping to join them in Rome. Both tournaments are on Sky Sports and BT Sport. A week before the French Open starts, there are ATP 250 tournaments in Geneva and Lyon, and WTA Internationals in Strasbourg and Nuremberg. Geneva and Nuremburg are on Eurosport, while Strasbourg is on BT Sport. As last year, some qualifying for the French Open will be broadcast on Eurosport before the climax of the clay season begins on 29 May, with full coverage on Eurosport and Eurosport Player, and selected matches free-to-air on ITV.

Fed Cup coverage announced by BT and BBC

9 April 2017

Great Britain's play-off tie with Romania will be broadcast on BT Sport, and also on the BBC Sport website, on the weekend of 22-23 April.

Both broadcasters advertised their plans on air this week. While commentating on WTA action in Charleston, Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong announced that BT Sport will begin coverage from 8:45 on Saturday 22 April on BT Sport 2. Meanwhile, Sue Barker announced during this weekend's Davis Cup coverage that the BBC would cover the tie on its website. There had been speculation that both broadcasters would broadcast the tie as Great Britain hope to return to World Group level for the first time since 1993. GB beat Croatia in the Europe/Africa Zone Group I promotional play-off match in Tallin in February to reach the World Group II Play-offs. Anne Keothavong is expected to announce a team including Miami Open winner Johanna Konta and Monterrey quarter-finalist Heather Watson.

The tie takes place in the Romanian city of Constanta. For the home team, Simona Halep, who Konta beat in her Miami quarter-final, is expected to play alongside Irina-Camelia Begu, who made quarter-finals in Charleston. Romania lost to Belgium at home in the first round of World Group II. Exact times have yet to be confirmed as schedules have not been published, but as soon as they are, they will be posted on this website.


Where to follow tennis in April

26 March 2017, updated 29 March 2017

The BBC will show the Davis Cup, while the ATP Tour continues on Sky Sports, and WTA action is on BT Sport. Here are the full details...

April in the tennis world begins with the finals in Miami. Johanna Konta made women's final, which is on Saturday 1 April at 18:00 on BT Sport 2 with a chance for non-subscribers to watch on BT Showcase - Freeview channel 59 - on Sunday at 20:00. The men's doubles final is Saturday at midnight on Sky Sports 1, with the final on Sunday at 18:00 on Sky Sports 3. Following her early exit in Miami, Heather Watson will defend her title in Monterrey, Mexico. She is joined by Naomi Broady in the main draw of the International event, while Tara Moore and Samantha Murray compete in qualifying. Johanna Konta will contest a strong field in Charleston, where Amanda Carreras is qualifying. Both tournaments are on BT Sport, starting on Monday 3 April. Andy Murray is out of Great Britain's Davis Cup tie against France in Rouen due to the elbow injury which forced him to withdraw from Miami. Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund have been called up for singles with Jamie Murray and Dom Inglot in for doubles. Coverage of the tie is across BBC One and Two between Friday 7 and Sunday 9 April. The Davis Cup Super Feed will be available on the BBC Sport website, app and connected red button throughout the weekend for coverage of the other three quarter final ties. Murray is still scheduled to play Roger Federer in The Match for Africa, an exhibition taking place in Zurich on Monday 10 April, shown on Eurosport 1. There are two ATP 250 events week commencing Monday 10 April, with no Brits currently entered. Heather Watson is competing in Biel, Switzerland the same week, with coverage on BT Sport along with the tournament in Bogotá. The ATP tour's clay season starts with the Monte Carlo Masters on Monday 17 April, where Murray is hoped to return to the court along with Evans and Edmund, with coverage across Sky Sports. GB's Fed Cup team travel to Constanta, Romania on the weekend of 22-23 April, and this will covered by BT Sport, as well as being available on the BBC Sport website. The week beginning Monday 24 April sees an ATP 500 event in Barcelona on Sky Sports - with most of the tournament available on Sky Sports Mix also - Evans and Edmund have entered here. The same week sees the controversial return of Maria Sharapova in the WTA Premier event in Stuttgart, which will be on BT Sport. No Brits are competing there but Heather Watson is on the list of alternates for Istanbul in the same week, on BT Sport from the quarter finals on Thursday 27th. The ATP Challenger Tour has official streaming on <a href="http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/atp-challenger-tour">its website</a>. <em>

Updates 29 March - Monterrey entries, Davis Cup team, Istanbul coverage. 1 April - Miami final, Charleston entries, Davis Cup Super Feed, The Match for Africa. 8 April - Fed Cup</em>

"Dixit" avoided: Sky and Discovery reach 11th hour agreement

31 January 2017

Discovery Networks' channels, which include Eurosport 1 and 2, will continue broadcasting on Sky after the two companies reached a deal.

Discovery announced that a compromise had been reached at 7:27pm; it's understood they accepted a lower carriage fee offer from Sky. Stephen van Rooyen, CEO of Sky UK and Ireland said: "We are pleased that we will continue to carry the Discovery and Eurosport channels on Sky. "The deal has been concluded on the right terms after Discovery accepted the proposal we gave them over a week ago. This is a good outcome for all Sky customers." However, Discovery immediately responded to say it didn't back down on its offer to Sky, claiming it will offer new services under the deal. A spokesperson for Discovery Networks said: "The deal we reached with Sky is meaningfully better than our former agreement and their proposal. "Furthermore, our new arrangement enables us to control our destiny in more ways, with even more opportunities to invest and launch channels and consumer services." It's unclear what those new services might be. Discovery's UK pay-TV portfolio is the largest it has in Europe, with the notable exception of "red button" service Eurosport 360 which it operates on satellite in Germany and Spain. Discovery and Sky had been in discussions over the carriage fee for thirteen channels since last summer, and when they had still not reached a deal with a week to go, Discovery warned customers the channels might disappear. Negotiations went right down to the wire with industry publications reporting last chance efforts to save the channels were ongoing as late as Tuesday afternoon. A war of words between the two companies reached a head at the weekend when Discovery accused Sky of using "alternative facts" when claiming they had been asked for almost £1 billion to carry Discovery's channels. Discovery broadcast warnings on screen, including during the Australian Open men's final, which reached 800,000 viewers - 10% of the UK audience - on Sunday morning, only second to BBC One in ratings, according to Eurosport. The announcement prompted hundreds of tennis fans to tweet the broadcasters urging them to reach an agreement, with many threatening to cancel their Sky subscriptions if they had.

Sunday morning's final was enjoyed by 800,000 viewers - 10% of the UK audience and only second to BBC One in ratings, according to Eurosport whose next tennis coverage is in May. After they did not renew broadcast rights to the Davis Cup, this weekend's tie between Canada and Great Britain will be on the BBC only. Sky began making preparations for the switching off of Discovery's channels, removing them from its website and starting a test broadcast of an information caption on Monday. Sky's new deal with Discovery Networks includes carriage of its channels in Germany, where there was also a risk of them leaving Sky Deutschland tonight.

Tennis fans threaten to leave Sky - should you?

29 January 2017

As Roger Federer celebrated his victory in this morning's Australian Open final, we were again warned by commentator Chris Bradnam, and with an on-screen graphic, that Eurosport could disappear from their screens on Wednesday. </strong> <!--more-->

Yesterday, Sky said Discovery Networks have asked for £1 billion for their package of channels, which includes Eurosport - it doesn't say what period of time this covers. Discovery says Sky is paying no more now for its channels than it did ten years ago, and it didn't even own Eurosport then. Thousands of Sky subscribers have expressed their dismay that Sky and Discovery have been unable to agree on carriage terms, which may result in those channels disappearing from Sky. There have been over 400 tweets disgruntled tennis fans in less than four days, many of them directed to Sky, telling them they'll cancel their packages. But should you phone up Sky to cancel, and if so when is the right time to do so?

We are told that negotiations are still ongoing, so cancelling before the 1 February deadline could be premature. Sky and Discovery could still reach an agreement which means nothing will change and the channels stay on air. Even if they do disappear, it may not be for long. Both Sky and Discovery set to lose money if they do not reach an agreement, so it's in both parties' interest to get the channels back on air as quickly as possible. However, a similar dispute between Sky and Virgin Media in 2007 left cable viewers without channels such as Sky 1 for over 20 months. Virgin Media lost 47,000 customers in the first three months of the blackout. Eurosport's next live tennis is in May, when they cover the ATP 250 events in Estoril and Istanbul. Tennis fans will be looking forward to Eurosport's extensive coverage of the French Open, British grass court season, and US Open.

If you've taken out a Eurosport Player subscription (£19.99 before 31 January), you can run this on some smart TVs or via an Amazon Fire stick, or you can cast it from your computer or mobile device to your TV, so you can still enjoy Eurosport on a big screen. The extra content on offer through Eurosport Player makes it worth the subscription even if Eurosport 1 and 2 stay on Sky, as the main channels don't always have all of the action live, and you can also take it out of the house with you on your mobile. With that in mind, it might not be time to quit Sky just yet. If you're a subscriber to Sky Sports or BT Sport, for their ATP and WTA coverage, and want to keep watching those channels too, changing providers may not be so easy as there may be penalties for ending those contracts. Virgin Media is the only other platform which offers all of the channels from Eurosport, Sky Sports and BT Sport. Only Sky Sports 1, 2 and 5 are available to BT TV customers, who must have their Infinity fibre broadband. If you can't get cable or fibre broadband in your area, you set to lose at least some of these channels by leaving Sky, although Sky Sports is also available through Now TV at £33.99 per month. It's also not yet clear if Sky will allow its customers to leave without penalty due to the reduced number of channels. However, customers are entitled to leave once they have received notification of the price increase due in March.

Tennis on UK TV in 2017 – your guide

21 September 2016, updated 27 January 2017

<strong>There are some small changes coming to tennis broadcasting. In a nutshell, BT Sport will be increasing their coverage of WTA events, and changes are being made to the Tennis TV subscription offering.</strong> <!--more-->

Here’s our guide to the different options available, to the best of my knowledge, for watching tennis in the UK in 2017. <h1>What can I already watch?</h1> <h2>I already have Sky Sports – what do I get?</h2> Sky Sports have rights to the ATP Masters 1000 and 500 series of events with the exception of Queen’s which is on the BBC and Eurosport. Sky also show the ATP World Tour Finals, which they share rights with the BBC. <h2>I already have BT Sport – what do I get?</h2> BT Sport currently have rights to all WTA Mandatory and Premier events, except for Birmingham and Eastbourne which are on Eurosport. They also show a selection of WTA International events, usually from the latter stages, and the Tour Finals. In 2017 they will have the rights to many more WTA International events, except for Nuremburg, Linz and Luxembourg which will remain on Eurosport also; Eastbourne is also on the BBC. <h2>I already have Eurosport – what do I get?</h2> Eurosport have full rights to three grand slams: the Australian Open, French Open and US Open. They also have daily highlights and live finals from Wimbledon. Eurosport show some other ATP 250 and WTA International events, usually the latter stages, but in 2017 BT Sport will have most of the WTA events. ATP events on Eurosport are Brisbane, Doha, Sydney, Estoril, Geneva, Stuttgart, Queen’s, Eastbourne and St Petersburg, and their WTA events are Nuremburg, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Linz and Luxembourg. <h2>What can I see on free-to-air TV?</h2> Wimbledon is available free-to-air on the BBC in HD with coverage on BBC One, BBC Two and the red button. There is also a choice of additional court coverage on their website and BBC Sport app, which is available on Apple, Android, Amazon, Roku and connected TV. The BBC also show single court coverage from the ATP 500 Queen’s and WTA Eastbourne, the day sessions and final of the ATP World Tour Finals (night sessions only on Sky), and GB ties in the Davis Cup. The French Open is also available free-to-air on ITV – usually ITV4 - but they can only show one match at a time so there is no choice of court, and ITV4 is not available in HD on all platforms. <h1>What subscription services are on offer?</h1> <h2>How do I get Sky Sports?</h2> Sky Sports is available on Sky and Virgin Media, BT TV and TalkTalk TV. You can also get Sky Sports via Now TV, to watch on their website or app – this costs £6.99 for a day, £10.99 for a week or £33.99 for a month but looks for offers. You can’t access the red button through Now TV, so you’ll only get the single-court coverage on the main channel. If you buy a monthly pass through the website, remember to cancel your subscription if you don’t want it to renew automatically. <h2>How do I get BT Sport?</h2> BT Sport is available on Sky, Virgin Media and BT TV. To get all four BT Sport channels on Sky currently costs £21.99 per month, or £26.99 in HD. This also gives you access via the website and app. BT Sport is part of the Full House TV package on Virgin Media. If you have BT Broadband you can get BT Sport for free (there is a charge for HD) either through BT TV or via their website. On the rare occasion there are schedule clashes some coverage is on the red button which is not available online. <h2>How do I get Eurosport?</h2> Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 are included in most packages on Sky, Virgin Media and BT TV. Eurosport has no red button but shows extra coverage live on the Eurosport Player website and app, along with Eurosport 1 and 2. Access to Eurosport Player costs £5.99 for a day, or £59.99 for a year (£19.99 before 31 January 2017). <h1>What’s the best option for me?</h1> <h2>I just want to watch Grand Slams:</h2> Wimbledon is available free-to-air on the BBC in HD with coverage on BBC One, BBC Two and the red button, and a choice of court coverage on their website and BBC Sport app which is also available on Roku and Connected TV. Eurosport also have some limited rights to Wimbledon – nightly highlights and the finals. The Australian Open, French Open and US Open are all available in full on Eurosport with a choice of courts on Eurosport Player. The French Open is also available free-to-air on ITV4, but they can only show one match at a time so there is no choice of court, and ITV4 is not available in HD on all platforms. So if you don’t already have Eurosport as part of your TV package, you'll need to get Eurosport Player which costs £5.99 for a day, or £59.99 for a year (£19.99 before 31 January 2017). <h2></h2> <h2>I just want to watch Andy Murray.</h2> Andy Murray plays the grand slams and all Masters 1000 series events, plus Queen’s and a couple of other ATP 500 events. You would therefore need Tennis TV or Sky Sports for the Masters 1000 and 500s, Eurosport for the Australian and US Opens, and the BBC for Wimbledon and Queen’s. ITV are pretty much guaranteed to show Murray’s matches at the French Open, so no need for Eurosport there. If you don’t already have access to any subscription TV or Tennis TV, this is the minimum you’ll need to spend to watch Andy Murray in 2017: £19.99 on Eurosport Player before 31 January for the Australian Open and ATP 250 event in Doha. In 2016, Murray took February off, and didn’t play until Indian Wells and Miami in March. Three months of Sky Sports at £33.99 a month will see you through to Rome in May. You can then watch Murray at the French Open on ITV or Eurosport, and Queen’s and Wimbledon on the BBC. A month of Sky Sports will cover Washington (if he chooses to play), then Montreal and Cincinnati. The US Open is exclusive to Eurosport which you'll already have. Another two months of Sky Sports for Beijing, Shanghai and Vienna in October, then Paris and the World Tour Finals. That’s a total of six months Sky Sports at £33.99 per month, and a year of Eurosport at £19.99, total £223.93. Remember though that both services allow you to watch all of their coverage of other sports at the same time. I do this because I also follow Formula 1 on Sky and cycling and athletics on Eurosport. If you're only sports interest is in tennis, then a year's subscription to Tennis TV would be cheaper for the ATP events (see below). <h2>I want to watch other British players on tour.</h2> You will either want to subscribe to Tennis TV (see below), or a combination of Sky Sports, BT Sport and Eurosport. Being lower ranked, the likes of Kyle Edmund, Dan Evans and Aljaz Bedene are more likely to play ATP 250 events, some of which are available on Eurosport. You’ll need BT Sport to watch the majority of action involving Johanna Konta, Heather Watson and Naomi Broady on the WTA tour. <h2>I just want to watch Davis Cup and Fed Cup.</h2> The BBC have the rights to Great Britain’s ties in the Davis Cup so you can watch these for free on the BBC. With GB's Fed Cup team currently down in the Europe/Africa Zone Group 1, you are unlikely to see them on TV in 2017. Davis Cup and Fed Cup were on Eurosport until 2016 but they did not renew the rights for 2017. You can watch all ties via the Davis Cup or Fed Cup website: £4.95 for 24-hour access. <h2>I want to watch all the tennis!</h2> You can watch most ATP tennis tournaments on their streaming service Tennis TV, via their website or Apple and Android apps. Grand Slams and Davis Cup are not available on Tennis TV so you will still need another way to watch these (see above). In 2017, Tennis TV will not be showing the WTA and the WTA have not announced details of an alternative service. Some tournaments are usually blocked in the host country and some others, and some of these are not broadcast at all. In 2016, the following ATP tournaments were blocked in the UK or not available at all on Tennis TV: ATP 500 London (Queen’s); ATP 250 Doha, Estoril and Nottingham. Some of these were available via other broadcasters, for example Queen’s is on both the BBC and Eurosport. In 2017 Tennis TV will be launching apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire in January with games consoles and connected TVs available later. They will also make more matches available and allow full replays no longer restricted to 7 days. Tennis TV is now £9.99 a month on a repeating subscription – this totals £109.89 for 11 months (Jan-Nov), or you can subscribe for a whole year for £74.99. Remember you’ll also Eurosport Player and access to the BBC (free) on top of this for the grand slams, and for WTA you'll either need to subscribe to BT Sport or wait for details of the new WTA streaming service to be announced. If you’re also interested in other sports as well as tennis, you might be better off subscribing to Sky Sports and/or BT Sport – a package with Sky, Virgin Media or BT also includes Eurosport but you may need to also take their broadband and phone line services too. <h1>What about dodgy streaming or betting sites?</h1> There are various dodgy streaming sites out there offering subscription sports for free. From experience their streams are unreliable, low quality (in both sound and vision), covered in pop-up advertising, and put you at risk of prosecution for copyright infringement. Betting sites are more reliable, but again the streams are low quality and come without commentary. You also need to have an open account with a betting site to view them. The ATP Challenger Tour has official streaming on <a href="http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/atp-challenger-tour">its website</a>. Remember, to watch live television in the UK, even online, you need a TV licence. <i>Updated 27 January with Davis and Fed Cups rights details.</i>


How to keep watching Eurosport if it disappears from Sky

26 January 2017

<strong>There is a serious risk that Eurosport, along with twelve other channels owned by Discovery Networks, will disappear from Sky next week.</strong> <!--more-->

Both Sky and Discovery have warned viewers that the channels will disappear on Wednesday 1 February if a deal over carriage fees can't be sorted out. <ul>

Coming up this year, Eurosport will have live multi-court coverage from the French Open, exclusive live coverage of the US Open, as well as seven ATP and five WTA events, including the British Grass court season leading up to Wimbledon. So how can you make sure you don't miss out on Eurosport and the other channels in the Discovery portfolio, which includes Animal Planet, TLC and Quest? Here I look at the options, as well as the option of leaving Sky. <ul>

<h2>Eurosport Player</h2> If you want to keep Eurosport, and aren't interested in the other Discovery channels on offer, Eurosport Player is probably the best option. Not only does Eurosport Player give you Eurosport 1 and 2, but during the French and US Opens there are live streams from almost every court, with live rewind and on-demand videos, and you can use it across multiple devices. Eurosport Player offers live content when there isn't enough room on its two linear channels for all of the sport it shows. During the ATP Sydney and Brisbane tournaments this month, all of the centre-court action was available live, even when it wasn't on TV. The standard price for Eurosport Player is £59.99 for a year’s subscription, but until the end of January, they are offering the whole year for £19.99. I think this is more than worth the money, even if Eurosport 1 and 2 do end up staying on Sky. You can watch Eurosport on your computer, connected TV app, and on mobile devices simultaneously, so you can double- and even triple-screen the action in your lounge, or take it with you when you go out. <h2>Virgin Media</h2> Virgin Media carry all of the Discovery-owned channels that are on Sky with the exception of TLC +2. You can also get Sky Sports and BT Sport via Virgin Media, so you can watch the ATP and WTA tournaments shown by those broadcasters, and this is the only other way to get all of those channels through one TV provider. You have to live in a cabled area to get Virgin Media, so this isn't available to everyone. <h2>BT TV and Plusnet</h2> Eurosport 1 and 2 are available through BT TV and Plusnet, as are some of the documentary channels from Discovery. BT TV and Plusnet are very similar TV services using a mixture of Freeview and Internet TV technology. For other tennis action, BT Sport is available through both BT TV and Plusnet. Only Sky Sports 1 and 2 are available - only through BT TV - so you would miss the tennis it if it was shown on one of the other Sky Sports channels. <h2>TV Player Plus</h2> TV Player is an internet TV service, also available through mobile apps. There are 78 free channels available through TV Player, most of which are available of Freeview, including Quest. Thirty more channels, including Eurosport 1 and 2, and five of Discovery's other channels, are available on TV Player Plus for £5.99 a month, and they offer the first month free as a trial. TV Player has apps for Android, Apple and some smart televisions. <h2>Freeview and Freesat</h2> Eurosport is not available free-to-air. The only channel that Discovery provides for free is Quest, available on Freeview. Some sports content has been shown on Quest in the past although no tennis so far. <h2>Leaving Sky</h2> Many viewers - mostly fans of documentaries, tennis, cycling and motorsports - have told Sky on Twitter that they will be leaving if these channels disappear next week. Sky probably won't let you leave without a penalty just because it's not providing these channels, however it has recently announced price rises for later in the year for all customers, and will be sending out letters in February. Once you have this letter you are legally entitled to end your contract with Sky without penalty; under Ofcom rules Sky must let you leave if they announce price rises that weren't detailed when you signed up or last locked into a new contract. <h2>Keeping Sky Sports</h2> If you leave Sky, then Sky Sports is available through Now TV, for £33.99 per month. It's also available through Virgin Media, and Sky Sports 1 and 2 are offered through BT TV.

Eurosport carriage at threat in dispute between Discovery and Sky

25 January 2017

<strong>Thirteen channels including Eurosport 1 &amp; 2 could disappear from Sky next week&nbsp;if a deal cannot be reached between Discovery and Sky.</strong> <!--more-->

Discovery will broadcast messages to viewers on its channels this evening, saying: "Our fans are among the most loyal in TV and we have invested significantly to bring world class channels and high quality programmes to the UK for nearly 30 years. "We are committed to finding a solution with Sky in order to keep bringing you the channels and shows you love." The broadcaster has said that the channels could disappear on 31 January unless an agreement is reached on how much Sky pays to carry the channels. Negotiations have been taking place since last summer.

Susanna Dinnage, the Managing Director for Discovery Networks UK and Ireland, said: "We are proud to be an independent network of channels that works hard to bring real-world first class channels and programmes to viewers in the UK for nearly 30 years, offering quality and variety to pay television. "We believe Sky is using what we consider to be its dominant market position to further its own commercial interest over those of viewers and independent broadcasters. The vitality of independent broadcasters like Discovery and plurality in TV is under threat." Sky is reported to have said it is prepared to removed the channels from its platforms and replace them with its own documentary content. In a statement, a spokesperson for Sky said: "Sky has a strong track record of understanding the value of the content we acquire on behalf of our customers, and as a result we've taken the decision not to renew this contract on the terms offered. "We have been overpaying Discovery for years and are not going to anymore. We will now move to deploy the same amount of money into content we know our customers value." Discovery has had an interest in Eurosport since 2012, became majority shareholder in 2014, and acquired&nbsp;French broadcaster TF1's share to become its sole owner in 2015. Discovery&nbsp;provides thirteen channels to Sky, not including HD and timeshifted versions, as well as Discovery Channel on&nbsp;Now TV, which is owned by Sky. Eurosport holds UK broadcast rights for all four grand slams - two exclusively - as well as a host of ATP and WTA events.

Davis Cup: coverage missing from Eurosport

21 January 2017

<strong>TV listings for most channels up to 10 February have been released, and notable in its absence is any coverage of the first round of the Davis Cup on Eurosport on the weekend of 3-5 February.</strong> <!--more-->

The BBC's listings include the Canada v GB tie but, with the time difference of -5 hours, it looks like the BBC don't wish to disrupt their main channels' evening&nbsp;schedules. The schedules for BBC Two show&nbsp;late night highlights on Friday 3rd and Sunday 5th, with live coverage of Saturday 4th's doubles rubber. The whole tie will be shown live on the BBC's red button, which unfortunately means standard definition quality, not HD. Listings for the red button channel show coverage from 20:00 on Friday 3rd February, when the action begins in Ottawa, and from 17:00 on Sunday 5th. However, the lack of any Eurosport coverage raises questions about broadcasting of the Davis Cup in the UK should Great Britain fail to make it past each round, as well as the Fed Cup - the equivalent competition for women. In the past, Eurosport have shown ties involving other countries when GB aren't playing, including last year's Davis Cup final between Croatia and Argentina. In January 2014, the BBC and Eurosport signed a deal with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to share rights to GB's Davis Cup ties for three years, so it appears that deal has now expired. Rights for the Davis Cup have been previously sold by country separately, to broadcasters such as France Télévisions and RTS in Serbia; and Eurosport did not hold the rights Europe-wide. In 2015, the ITF partnered with BeIN Sports to handle television and media rights for the Davis Cup and Fed Cup. Both of these may be reasons why Eurosport has chosen not to renew rights for 2017, as their recent strategy has been to purchase rights for multiple countries together. There has been no announcement yet from the ITF or any broadcaster about Davis Cup television rights for 2017. Current confirmed listings: <ul> <li>Friday 3 February, live coverage on BBC Red Button at 20:00, highlights on BBC Two at 23:05</li> <li>Saturday 4 February, live coverage on BBC Two at 18:00</li> <li>Sunday 5 February, live coverage on BBC Red Button at 17:00, highlights on BBC Two at 23:15</li> </ul> <i>Updated 26 January with confirmed BBC Red Button coverage.</i>


How to watch the Australian Open 2017

7 January 2017

<strong>The Australian Open starts in just a week's time and promises to be a cracker, with Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber defending their titles, and no less than seven Brits in the main draw. Here's how to make sure you don't miss a hit. <!--more--></strong> Top British players Andy Murray and Johanna Konta are pretty much guaranteed coverage on Eurosport 1 and 2 but at grand slams, especially in the early stages, there can be two or three Brits playing matches at the same time. To make sure you see your favourites - Dan Evans, Kyle Edmund, Naomi Broady, Heather Watson and Aljaz Bedene are also in the main draw - you're going to need to get Eurosport Player. Not only does Eurosport Player give you Eurosport 1 and 2, but during the Australian Open there are streams of up to 16 courts in play, with live rewind and on-demand videos, and you can use it across multiple devices. The standard price for Eurosport Player changed for 2017 and is £59.99 for a year's subscription, but until the end of January, they are offering the whole year for £19.99. I think this is more than worth the money, even if you already get Eurosport 1 and 2 through your television package, and they're not paying me to tell you this - here's why. You can watch Eurosport on your computer, connected TV app, and on mobile devices simultaneously, so you can double- and even triple-screen the action in your lounge, or take it with you when you go out. Ahead of the AO, this week, Eurosport Player has live coverage of the World Tennis Challenge from Adelaide and ATP event in Sydney - where Evans and Edmund are playing. There is also coverage of the qualifying from Melbourne from Wednesday, giving you the chance to see Laura Robson and Tara Moore in action. Eurosport will also have multi-court coverage of the French Open and US Open later in the year as well as a full programme across their two channels. ITV offers just one channel from Roland Garros, and the US Open is exclusive to Eurosport. Also this year, Eurosport have coverage of seven more ATP and five WTA events, including the British Grass court season leading up to Wimbledon (full list of events below). There are daily highlights of Wimbledon, and live coverage of the two finals, should you want something different to the BBC. All in all, we think this is well worth the £19.99 so make sure you don't miss a moment. The Australian Open starts at 0:00 on the morning of Monday 16 January. The women's final is on Saturday 28 January at 8:30, and the men's final on Sunday 29 January at 8:00. ATP events on Eurosport in 2017: (Brisbane and Doha last week), Sydney, Estoril, Istambul, Geneva, Stuttgart, Queen's (non-exclusive), Eastbourne, St Petersburg. WTA events on Eurosport in 2017: Nuremburg, Birmingham, Eastbourne (non-exclusive), Linz, Luxembourg.


Changes to Tennis TV and coverage of the WTA

26 September 2016, updated 7 January 2017

TennisTV today (26 Sept 2016) announced that from the 2017 season they will only be covering the ATP World Tour.

This is the second big announcement for the streaming service in less than a week, after stating that they would be changing their service to include apps on more platforms and enhancements to the service.

There had been rumours going around social media that further changes were to be expected, as there was no mention at the time that there would be no coverage of the WTA tour.

Some users now, as then, are disgruntled that TennisTV have not been fully transparent about what the service will offer them in 2017. Tennis TV had to clarify some details after its previous announcement, so this time they have prepared an FAQ in advance.

What's changing to TennisTV and the ATP?

From the end of this year, TennisTV will only show matches from the ATP tour. They will be streaming all ATP Masters 1000, 500 and 250 series tournaments as well as the World Tour Finals at the end of the year.

They are adding the facility to replay matches for longer than the current seven days, and will release apps on more devices such as Amazon and Roku.

Update 13 December 2016: The monthly subscription is now £9.99 per month, and annual subscriptions are available again, now priced at £74.99.

TennisTV is owned by ATP Media who produce the coverage you also see on Sky Sports when they are not using their own presenters and commentators.

What is happening to the WTA coverage?

Tennis TV say that the WTA will provide its own subscription offering but no details have been released yet on what this might be.

In 2017, WTA Media are improving their offering to broadcasters, including BT Sport, who will now have rights to show 52 WTA tour events throughout the year, an increase of 30 - believed to be the International level events.

Coverage of tournaments at the International level is not currently produced by WTA Media and broadcasters purchase rights individually for these. This is why some have been picked up by Eurosport rather than BT, and they are sometimes direct relays of the home broadcaster; for example BT Sport showed Sky New Zealand's coverage of the ASB Classic from Auckland this year.

WTA Media have signed deals with other broadcasters around the world such as BeIN Sports for 2017 onward, for all WTA tournaments, leading to the suggestion that the WTA have taken television production of all International tournaments in-house, so you'll see WTA standard graphics on the coverage.

A small number of WTA events will not be broadcast on BT Sport and remain on Eurosport in 2017: Nuremburg, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Linz and Luxembourg.

What does this mean for me?

The changes mean that tennis fans who subscribe to TennisTV will have to spend more money to see WTA coverage, whether that be via BT Sport or through the WTA's new service.

TennisTV has said that viewers can cancel their subscriptions online, but they will continue to show the WTA tour until the end of the current year.

Those who purchased an annual subscription while they were available will be contacted by TennisTV and compensated accordingly.

Read more: Important Information about TennisTV in 2017

2016

Watching the WTA in 2017 and how to get BT Sport

17 December 2016

<strong>With the announcement earlier in the year that Tennis TV will no longer be showing the WTA, fans around the world have been wondering for the last couple of months just how they will be able to watch their favourite female tennis players in action in 2017.</strong><!--more--> WTA Networks announced in October that it was due to launch its new apps and website in January. With the first WTA tournament of 2017 starting on Monday 2nd January, that now doesn't leave much time to sign up and get going, and they've not even announced any prices yet. Here in the UK, I like many others, have been left with the dilemma of either waiting for the WTA to get their act together, or finding a way to get BT Sport, who are increasing their WTA coverage next year, as shown by the fact they are showing live coverage of all five WTA events taking place before the Australian Open. However, the question has already been answered for us by the WTA. And it's not looking good. In an interview with the No Challenges Remaining podcast in October, the WTA's CEO Steve Simon said that there probably won't be a streaming service available until mid-2017. If the WTA has no replacement for Tennis TV ready for the start of the 2017 season, why has it pulled out? Whatever the answer to that question, a more pressing one two weeks before the seasons starts is how can I watch the WTA on BT Sport, which seems to be the only option now (dodgy low quality streams aside), and how much will it cost? There are three ways to subscribe to BT Sport: <ul> <li>Take a BT phone line and broadband, and get BT Sport on top.</li> <li>Add BT Sport to a TalkTalk phone and broadband package</li> <li>Add BT Sport to a Sky TV subscription.</li> <li>Get BT Sport through Virgin Media cable</li> </ul> Some of these options would involve taking out a new phone and broadband or TV subscription with new equipment. There is no guarantee now that this could be installed by the start of the season on 2 January and if you're tied into a contract with another provider already, there may be a charge to pay to end a minimum term. Note, a small number of WTA events will not be broadcast on BT Sport and remain on Eurosport in 2017: Nuremburg, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Linz and Luxembourg. <h3>Getting BT Sport directly from BT</h3> BT's cheapest phone and broadband package is currently £29.99 per month, and BT Sport on top of that is £5 per month, and you watch via the website or app. Alternatively if you take BT TV starting from £3 per month, you get a set top box which you can watch BT Sport on for free, but only in SD; HD is £5 per month more. If you have or get BT phone and broadband and a Sky subscription, it's an extra £6 a month to add BT Sport to your Sky package, which takes approximately 15 minutes. <h3>Getting BT Sport via TalkTalk</h3> If you get your phone and broadband from TalkTalk you can subscribe to BT Sport for an extra £21.99 per month, which gives you access via the website and app. It takes approximately 15 minutes to add. <h3>Getting BT Sport through Sky</h3> If you get your broadband through another provider (not BT or TalkTalk) and have a Sky TV dish and set-top box, you can add BT Sport to your viewing card for £21.99 a month in SD or £26.99 a month in HD. Currently they are offering the first three months for free but there is also a £15 activation fee. This is the most expensive way of getting BT Sport as you would also be paying this on top of your broadband and Sky TV subscriptions, the cheapest of which is currently £42.40 per month to get both through Sky. If you already get your phone and broadband through BT but subscribe to Sky TV, it's £6 a month to add BT Sport to your Sky package, which takes approximately 15 minutes. <h3>Getting BT Sport through Virgin Media</h3> BT Sport is available through Virgin Media if you live in a cabled area. It's in their Full House bundle which costs £46 per month for phone and TV, or £55 per month with broadband.


The Times speculates on 2019 ATP broadcast rights battle

19 November 2016

Callum Jones of The Times reports that BT, Eurosport and ITV are interested in taking the broadcast rights to the ATP World Tour from 2019 from Sky.

It's not known if ATP Media will auction the rights or talk to broadcasters individually.

The full article requires registration on The Times' website, readers can access two articles per week for free.