I honestly had no idea that the Australian Open was even going on, but I'm aware now after these two videos. The first has ESPN deciding to stay with Andy Roddick as he cursed out the chair ump following his last match, and the second....well the second you have to listen for yourself (NSFW). Enjoy!

You heard that right. A fan just yelled "paging doctor faggot". That just happened. I will now stop ignoring you Australian Open and give you the posts that you deserve.

I linked to the story earlier, but now there's video of the incident thanks to WL. During a World Team Tennis match, McEnroe got upset with a shot by Washington’s Leander Paes. The shot hit his teammate, Robert Kendrick, and the group got together for a small tet-a-tet. Well four points later, Paes sent a serve right at Kendrick, and that sent everyone off. Well as "off" as you can get during a meaningless Tennis match....

The extra dude that showed up in the blue shirt is actually New York's Coach, Chuck Adams, and he has since been suspended. It doesn't take much in Tennis apparently. Also, if someone sent a 100mph serve at me when I wasn't returning it, I think I would do a lot more than just chat with the guy. That's just me though.

You Can't Be Serious, Man (With Leather)

Roger Federer took out Andy Roddick over the weekend, to notch his fifteenth major championship, and Nike put together a pretty cool ad to honor the accomplishment. Here is the spot featuring the likes of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and John McEnroe....

A month ago, NBC blacked out a semifinal match featuring Roger Federer, to show a taped match between Fernando Gonzalez and Robin Soderling. Well today they've done the same thing by replaying Federer's straight set dismantling of Ivo Karlovic, while Andy Roddick battles former world number one, Lleyton Hewitt. Via Fang's Bites....

NBC is currently showing the Roger Federer-Ivo Karlovic match which finished before 10 a.m. ESPN2 was not allowed to show this match. And it joined the Tommy Haas-Novak Djokovic match in progress, but not after showing the Williams sisters in doubles and James Blake in a doubles match as well.

This was quite maddening to tennis fans who wanted to see the Federer match which he won easily in three sets, 6-3, 7-5 and 7-6 (7-3). Yes, I'm spoiling the results because this is what NBC deserves for short changing fans once again. And not only is NBC showing it on tape delay at 10 a.m. in the East, it's going to do it at 10 a.m. in all time zones so by the time the West Coast sees the match, it will have been more than three hours old.

And while NBC is preventing ESPN2 from showing certain matches as it calls exclusivity not only today, but for the rest of the week, it is streaming matches from Centre Court and Court No. 1 live on NBCSports.com. So while the network is screwing with viewers on TV, it's saying, "Come over to our website and watch the match on a small player." It's not the same as watching it live on your TV whether it be in sparkling clear high definition or in old school standard def.

Providing the feed is certainly helpful, but to take fans of Roddick on a ride like this is just wrong. Not a single person in America can watch the match on television. You'd like NBC to think of the fans when things like this happen, but this happens in every major tournament the air. They won't be changing the practice anytime soon, so it's best to just get used to it.

Update: It appears the online feature is a bit of a pain as well. Via The Business Insider....

On the NBC Sports site, we clicked the nice big WIMBLEDON LIVE! link. And we got a big popup saying we needed to upgrade Silverlight.

We pushed the buttons we were supposed to, and we downloaded some things, and we refreshed our browser like we were supposed to, and then we pushed the button again like we were supposed to. And we got another big popup saying we needed to upgrade Silverlight.

[Repeat until you want to shoot yourself].

So now we're back to watching the ancient-history Haas-Djokovic tape delay, praying that the Roddick Hewitt shootout will still be going on at 1PM ET when the TV rights revert back to ESPN. (It probably won't be. Roddick just took a 5-2 lead in the breaker and is already up a set).

NBC is Effing with Tennis Fans Again (Fangs Bites)

It's amazing that ball girls and boys don't get hit more often, but at least we have this clip to get us by until it happens again. Michael Llodra was playing Tommy Haas at Wimbeldon yesterday, and while chasing down a shot, careened into a ball girl on the sideline. Take a look....

My favorite part was not the hit, that was actually pretty scary, but rather the announcer saying, "I hope he's okay!" Yeah that's it, forget the little girl who just got plowed over. Too funny.

John McEnroe has been brought on by ESPN as analyst, but the outspoken one will be making an appearance on CBS this Saturday. McEnroe will be hoping on, between games one and two of the Final Four, to try to get people more in the know about Prostate Cancer....

The Final Four on CBS this Saturday will be interrupted by John McEnroe. The three-time Wimbledon and four-time US Open Champion, who recently turned 50, will be serving up a bit of humor for the 50 year-olds watching the Final Four on CBS this Saturday. Mac, alongside 50 year-old hoopsters Kelly Tripucka and Rick Mahorn, will appear in a vignette that will ONLY air one-time encouraging men to visit www.50over50challenge.com and get serious about their prostate health (specifically enlarging prostate).

I guess if you're going to break into one of the best Basketball days of the year, it should definitely be for something this important. Be sure to check out the site at 50 Over 50 Challenge, and get those prostates checked, boys!

Update: Well now you don't even have to wait until Saturday. Here's the spot for your perusal....

Jimmy Fallon kicked off his new talk show this week, and while it's going to be tough to replace Conan, he's not off to that bad of a start. He's had on Robert DeNiro, Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz and even got a chance to play Serena Williams in beer pong!

Entertaining, but seriously....who throws under-handed in pong? I also hope there wasn't water in there because that would just be lame.

Video: Serena Williams vs. Jimmy Fallon in Beer Pong (Sportaphile)

There was a big hubabaloo last week over the Tennis Channel's decision to not air the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, because player Andy Ram was not given a Visa to enter the Country because of predjudgices towards the Israeli. Well a U.S. Rep said that Dubai has finally granted the player that entry, but the Tennis Channel doesn't seem to care. In fact, they are looking for some of Ram's best performances to air in the spot that the Tournament was supposed to be. Via the NY Times....

On Wednesday, Weiner said: “It was my sense from the ambassador that he was looking to do the right thing, but that’s small consolation to Miss Peer. He understood that they had made a mistake and they had a public relations problem.”

The decision to grant Ram a visa could not be independently confirmed with the U.A.E. embassy in Washington or by the ATP Tour.

Ken Solomon, the chairman and chief executive of the Tennis Channel, said the network was looking into its archive to find Peer’s best tournament performance to replay Feb. 28 or March 1, the dates of the men’s semifinals and final.

I'm not going to pretend to even delve into the Political aspects of this whole thing, but good for the Tennis Channel to stick up for what they believe in. The Wall Street Journal has also pulled sponsorship, and if I was Ram or Peer (a woman's player also banned), I would just skip the think entirely.

Congressman Says Dubai Will Give Visa to Israeli Man (NY Times)

So, we're looking at an interesting 2nd week of tennis' first major, even though I haven't had as much time to watch the first Grand Slam as I'd like -- most of the other tourneys are kind of meh, but tennis has the same appeal to me as golf; I have to watch the four Grand Slam tournaments if at all possible. It has not helped that ESPN is seeing fit to tape delay the Open, I theorize that this practice combined with the rise of the Internet has kind of wrecked the overseas majors for people who watched tennis casually because the results are online before you can actually watch the matches.

In the men's draw, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are still around, joined by players like Andy Murray (solid Scot player), defending champ Novak Djokovic, last year's runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and his fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils. Andy Roddick is also still banging around, but the odds of him reaching Open heights are slim.

Much of the women's draw, in terms of American attention, is about Serena Williams and the assorted dash of "Ova", "Eva" and other Slavs/Russians dominating the draw. Honestly, most of them don't play complete games yet (this is according to a tennis-loving friend who knows much, much more about the sport than I ever could), and based on that assessment, I don't expect Williams to cruise, but it would be surprising if she did not repeat. She is still the best in the game when she's on. The only one I'd think of watching out for is Dinara Safina -- just as mercurial as her brother Marat Safin.

My general problem with the sport is that they've slowed down every surface that isn't clay. I highly doubt that a player like Nadal would be winning hardcourt or grass majors even as recently as 5-10 years ago. It's become a baseliner's game of hard ground strokes as opposed to mixing that in with net approach.

That doesn't mean I won't watch, though -- but that tape delay and the fact that there's a live Man U.-Tottenham FA Cup match doesn't help tennis too much. Anyway, when the Round of 16 rolls around, that's when attention must be paid.

Now this isn't something you see everyday at Tennis tournament. The Australian Open turned into quite a seen today as kids of Bosnian and Serbian descent decided to take out their differences with lawn chairs following a match between Serbian Novak Djokovic and Bosnian Amer Delic. Here is the chair-throwing goodness....

Now as serious as tensions are between those two groups, could a fight get any lamer? I mean, standing on the other side of a little garden and throwing plastic chairs? They really could have settled their differences with Nerf guns and/or laser tag. Preferably laser tag.

Having attended the U.S. Open for the first time last year, I'm much more into Tennis than I used to be, but the Australian Open is on pretty darn late so I haven't really been watching. Today, two videos surface of people getting struck in the face and since there's nothing else exciting going on today, I thought I'd share them with you!

Up first is Marat Safin pinging the net judge, and apologizing with a nice smooch on the cheek....

Aww! How thoughtful. Now as sweet as that was, it's not nearly as sweet as this clip of a ball boy getting blasted by Juan Martin Del Potro!!! Via Simon on Sports....



Do me a favor and just hit replay about five more times on that one. I promise it will make your day.

Do You Get An Auto Win For Drilling the Ball Boy? (Simon on Sports)

Sort of a combo post here because both tidbits are about ESPN, but both were interesting enough to warrant a spot on the site. First up is the news that the "Leader" will soon be charging for some of its video content that was once free to visitors of the website. Via Mediapost....

Over the past several years, ESPN has moved aggressively in making full episodes of its popular debate shows "PTI" and "Around the Horn" widely available on the Internet. First, the shows were carried on ESPN360.com (which is free, but in only 24 million homes). Then, they were moved to ESPN.com, available to everyone for nothing.

No more. Now, in order to view the duo on ESPN.com, a person must be what's called an ESPN Insider and pay a fee ($6.95 a month, $39.95 a year).

ESPN is also looking at curtailing access to some of the live events it provides at no cost on ESPN360.com--where it offers a wealth of high-profile simulcasts of games seen on its networks. Here again, the programmer has been ambitious in expanding its offerings, which include NBA playoff games; Duke vs. North Carolina and other top college basketball games; SEC football; and starting last summer, Major League Baseball.

I had always wondered why they put so much time and effort into a free service, but their video content had gotten so good over the last few years, I wasn't about to complain. It stinks for fans of those shows and that content, but it certainly makes good business sense.

As far as our second little item, it seems as if ESPN the Mag will be letting Maria Sharapova run things for an issue. Every so often, the Mag will grab an athlete to edit its pages for an issue (Chad Johnson, Matt Leinart), and the Tennis star will be the next one to do so. According to Deadspin though, they are having some issues finding Ms. Sharapova assignments....

Folks,

Maria Sharapova is going to be the "Editor-in-Chief" of our Athletes Issue. She accepted this responsibility with great enthusiasm and would like, for an issue, to focus her efforts for the Magazine toward revamping the fashion-sense of America's favorite athletes. She has two ideas:

-The make-over. She wants to redo the style of LeBron (even though he only wears Ralph Lauren's premium label), Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Bush etc.
-The Best Dressed/Worst Dressed list. It's debut in our pages.

Why am I going on about this? Because we need to come up with some other things she can do in addition (or in place of) the above. Ideally, some of you have ideas that put to use her interest in style and applies it to our pages. I'd love to hear any and all thoughts on the matter. There are no stupid ideas. Please take a few minutes and ask yourself "If Maria Sharapova were my boss for a day, how could she make the magazine better?" And then send me what you come up with. By Wednesday, please.

I think when you say "there are no stupid ideas", you're pretty much setting yourself up for some stupid ideas. Hopefully they don't embarrass her too much. Good times at the "Leader"!

No Free Ride: ESPN Charges For Some Web Shows (Media Post)
ESPN Mag To Get a Sharapova-cized Makeover (Deadspin)

Still trying to catch up from being gone the whole weekend, so bear with me this morning as I get things back in gear. Wanted to first share this clip from Pittsburgh’s WDVE radio in which Merril Hoge continuing his over three year campaign of trashing Vince Young. The ESPN analyst was on WDVE to talk Steelers Football when he decided to jump on Young almost right away. Without being prompted by the host, Hoge called Young a "baby" and the he had "no clue" what was going on. From ESPN's AFC South Blog via Sports by Brooks....

Look, I have some irrational hate myself, but good lord....give it a rest already. I still don't think it's been proven that Vince Young is a bad Quarterback, and considering he went to both the Playoffs and the Pro Bowl last year, I would think most people would say he's been successful early on. Sure the guy's got his problems, but to pile on like this when he's down is pretty classless if you ask me.

You're on a Pittsburgh station talking about Week Three, and you're complaining about something a young kid did in Week One. Give it a rest, Merril.

Merril Hoge rips Vince Young, again (AFC South)
Hoge Still Hates Vince Young, Calls QB A “Baby” (Sports by Brooks)

The USA Network has carried the opening rounds of the U.S. Open for 25 years and has always done an amazing job with the tournament. For one reason or another, the network has decided to focus all attention and resources on its "Characters Welcome" campaign (and will give you more episodes of Law & Order you can handle!) and won't be renewing its TV contract with USTA next year....

The network is giving up sports to focus on its character-driven programming. ESPN and the Tennis Channel will televise from Flushing Meadows for at least the next five years.

For two weeks, USA has been reminiscing over its 25-year history of covering the tournament, replaying moments like the Barbra Streisand “Zen” interview.

The cable change probably won’t make too big a difference to tennis fans — McEnroe & company hop from network to network — but it will be strange without relentless commercials for programs like “The Starter Wife.” (In 1995, the network did so many promos for a made-for-TV thriller called “The Colony,” I broke down and watched it. Let’s just say it was best shown in 60-second snippets.)

Over the years USA has been purging themselves of Sports like the Masters, and after this move they're only left with just the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and RAW (not really Sports, but you get what I'm saying). I understand that $140 Million dollars is a lot of money, and I'm personally not breaking any doors down to watch Burn Notice or Monk, but maybe someone is. I've watched the U.S. Open on the network since I was a kid, so it's definitely sad to see it go to another network, but at least McEnroe and Co. are staying on board.

With that said, I've always been a fan of season ending or year ending montages and this 25-year one ranks up there with the best of them. Especially when you set it to a cover of Steely Dan's "Reelin' In The Years"....

Closing Time for USA Network (NY Times)

It was inevitable wasn't it? Almost immediately after I put up the Don King/Undertaker post yesterday, I noticed a DSRL commercial that seemed a bit different. The Mannings were at a press conference and....oh no....not Venus and Serena!

Lame. I do have to say though that the DSRL theme song is catchy as hell. These U.S. Open promotions are just everywhere and since someone guessed this one in the comments yesterday, I'm going to give it a shot. My prediction is that the next U.S. Open spot will come either during A) America's Got Talent or B) Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Video: Williams Sisters Challenge Manning Brothers To Oreo Licking Race (You Been Blinded)

Now far be it from me to poke fun at a Tournament that is trying its hardest to let people know it's right around the corner, but when you employ Don King and the WWE to do so....I have to comment. The U.S. Open is getting underway today, but the past few weeks have been rather interesting in the way of PR for the matches in Flushing, New York.

First up was Nike's campaign hyping the potential final matchup of Nadal v. Federer. The Swoosh decided to turn the potential meeting into a pseudo-weigh in for the two Tennis stars and even brought in Don King to do what Don King does. Hype. Via the Telegraph....

King, speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, revealed his “delight” at being called up to promote one of the greatest sporting rivalries on the planet. “You had the 'Thrilla in Manila’, you had the 'Rumble in the Jungle’ now we have the 'Grapple in the Apple’. We gonna take it to the moon. They try to pretend to be friends. But they’re no kin and they’re gonna bend. They got to be competitive.”

King, getting into character, insisted in his idiolect that the US Open would be “free of trickeration”. Tennis may never be the same. But nor would boxing have had some of its most memorable nights without the genius of King.

As annoying as King is, that's pretty clever and that poster is pretty spot on. You would think that "stunt" was enough, but oh no, they weren't done there. "Hey, Let's try to use the most obvious avenue to cross promote the Tourney. Why of course that's the WWE!"



Well then.....that was special. The collaboration between WWE and the U.S. Open isn't anything new, but I think it's safe to say that having a wrestler jump off a judges chair onto a tennis player is taking it to another level.

'Apple Grapple' brings a gleam to Don King's eye (Telegraph)

I swear we can't go even a week without some announcer saying something stupid that upsets a racial, religious, or gender based group. Most recently it was Johnny Miller and Italians, but over the past two years I've been writing this site I think we're up in the teens now.

Well I think we're likely to add yet another controversy brewing after Dick Enberg decided to use the term "Nubian Slaves" while calling an opening round match. He was talking about Roger Federer talking with the Studio Team and how regal the number one player in the World is. Some much so that he would have to be transported like a Sultan being carried by "Four Nubian Slaves"....

"Roger Federer on his way. I wonder how they transport him? One of those Sultan chairs with four Nubian Slaves take him into our studio."- Dick Enberg

I know Enberg wasn't trying to intentionally bring race into his commentary, but he did. Just using the term "slave" alone in an arguably elitist Sport dominated by white individuals alone is going to perk some ears but using the term "Nubian"?! Come on Dick. You're better than that.

If you're not into Tennis this isn't really news, but if you are it most certainly is. For the first time ever at least part of all four Tennis Grand Slam Tournaments will air on one network and that network is ESPN....

ESPN and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) have agreed to a six-year television and digital rights agreement that brings the US Open in New York to ESPN for the first time, starting in 2009. ESPN2 will carry approximately 100 hours of live action from the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center annually, in addition to an expansive array of digital rights for ESPN360.com, ESPN’s signature broadband network, and other outlets and international coverage. In addition, ESPN2 will continue to televise the Olympus US Open Series – summer, hard-court events in North America leading to the US Open – with 96 hours annually.

This development completes a Grand Slam for ESPN….the company now presents all four tennis majors: the Australian Open (since 1984), the French Open (1986 – 1993 and since 2002), Wimbledon (since 2003) and the US Open – on ESPN2, the Grand Slam Network. No other U.S. television network has previously televised all four events.

Seems like a pretty bold move to acquire the rights to a Sport that hasn't been the same for a few years, but if you've got three you mind as well get the fourth. Majors are kind of like Railroads in Monopoly in that regard.

(ESPN PR)

I really don't have words to describe this. I'll just let you watch. Wait for it.....Waaaaaaaait for it (fun starts at 1:30 in).....

Umm yeah. That's Mikhail Youzhny seeming not so happy with himself. A bit crazy, but the motivation tactic seemed to work because he came back and won the match.

How to Properly Beat Yourself Up With a Racquet (The Sporting Blog)

Here at AA I've taken pride in the ribbing that I've given Eli Manning over the past two years. He was dubbed unstoppable and that was basically his nickname in live-blogs, and posts. I hammered Citizen Eco for that campaign that consists of Elisha, an always injured Emeka Okafor, and some Tennis player named Nicole Viadasova.

Well it turns out that Eli's run with the Giants is actually working out for the Citzen people, and they want to thank him. Via Sports Business Daily....

Citizen runs an ad in the sports section of today's N.Y. Times congratulating Giants QB Eli Manning and his teammates for winning the NFC Championship. In the ad, Manning is wearing a Citizen Eco-Drive watch.

I haven't seen the ad yet, so if you have please share your thoughts as soon as you take a gander. Congrats Eli and to the good people of Citizen that may just now be tuning in. I thought this was a great idea from the beginning, and you can email me if you have any watches you would like me to test out and promote on the site.