itv covering french open

From R1? Awesome if it is, don't care about mug comms, proper tv pics ftw (even if they are slow and unfit for some betting purposes)

usually ITV4 INNIT?

I like John inverdale who usually presents it, starts 26 may

May 15, 2013 -- 11:31PM, smb360 wrote:

From R1? Awesome if it is, don't care about mug comms, proper tv pics ftw (even if they are slow and unfit for some betting purposes)

It is from R1. It's ok for what it is judging from last year. Courier is very good and he was a major part of the setup last year. The biggest weakness unless its changed is the lack of a multi-match feature, even just offering 2 matches would be a big upgrade, because early on in grand slams there is normally a lot going on.

Unlike the above poster though I think Inverdale is a terrible anchor man, because he strikes me as someone who only watches tennis during Wimbledon.

santro is a legend

I hope Murray doesn't enter and Robson gets knocked out early just so every match isn't the British mugs.

I thought ITV4's coverage was surprisingly good last year. As someone has already said the major flaw is coverage of just one match, if they had a red button feature it would be a great addition. Everything else though was spot on IMO, Inverdale did well as main host and seemed to have a decent knowledge of tennis, Santoro and Courier were interesting too and the tennis chat when it was raining and in the gaps between matches was pretty insightful and sometimes quite technical from memory, they didn't dumb down coverage to appeal to people who only watch tennis around Wimbledon time.

n88uk just seen what you wrote about Inverdale, can't say I agree with you - I actually thought his knowledge was sound and better than that of a lot of sports presenters. He seemed to know a bit about shot types, selection, some technicalities and was familiar with players lower down the rankings. I thought he was a lot better than John Lloyd for example (Lloyd isn't the presenter but commentates and should have more knowledge) who I remember in the BBCs French Open coverage describing Wozniacki as a powerful and aggressive player

Inverdale is one of the worst presenters around.

ITV   - one match at a time, is f*ckin' useless.....concentrate on big names in one-sided contests and unable to focus on the better more competitive matches.

Does that mean Eurosport not covering? must check.

women only on Eurosport surely

No ITV covered both pretty fairly if I remember correctly.

yes but there will be coverage on Eurosport too surely

and if there is will be womens matches

Buckland is a far better anchor on Sky Sports than Inverdale. Even Croft, although her actual presentation is not fluid at all (she's very wooden) she at least clearly watches tennis all year around.

Inverdale it's always clear he hasn't watched any tennis in recent months. He doesn't know anything about players that aren't the top players. I seem to remember he basically didn't know who the world number 1 was last year, because he commented something like "we've got another Sharapova on our hands here haven't we".

eurosport trailed it last night

Eurosport also have it is why. Eurosport also use both channels for the majority of the tournament. Probably the most annoying thing is though, that often at least 1 of the matches Eurosport are showing will be the match on ITV 4 as well. I preferred ITV's commentary team by far to Eurosport's though. ITV have a number of people with interesting insights, Eurosport mainly just has people who spout off stale cliches.

For example there is no reason to bring up grunting, MTO problems, comfort break problems for the 1 millionth time every time one occurs, yet Eurosport will make sure they do.

when it comes to wimbledon, i wonder if beeb could persuade sky to free up spare channels as they did for the olympics

Aren't all the games available on the red button anyway? 365 normally have all the matches these days anyway, last year they had Wimbledon with BBC's commentary.

Talking of BBC's commentary, the irony with them is they have some good commentators except they use them on the match on like Court 18.  They use their worst commentators for the main matches, like Castle, Lloyd etc.

lol at the advert "I like the french because you get 50-60 shot rallys"

when was the last time you saw a 60 shot rally on clay, infrequent

I think he said you 'can' get rallies that long? But you're right, they're so infrequent that when they happen they have little to do with the surface that the players are playing on, and thus can happen anywhere (see Simon v Monfils at this year's AO )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8iunyDh4ms

the average rally length must be about 10 or so

47 shots in Simon match now

ITV is faster than 365 scoreboard

One again this just shows how good Sky are at tennis coverage, no red button for match choice, just stuck with one sided boredom...PFFT!

ITV are doing a complete hatchet job of it. terrible cverage

ITV's coverage has been fairly decent so far, but that pre-advert black and white ticker is starting to get on my tits, especially as it could in theory be sitting there for about 10 mins if it's an extended game

May 27, 2013 -- 12:43PM, WhiteCafu wrote:

ITV's coverage has been fairly decent so far, but that pre-advert black and white ticker is starting to get on my tits, especially as it could in theory be sitting there for about 10 mins if it's an extended game

this so much

hate the b~&w ticker

ya gotta laugh , On Nadal  , "he's got a forehand that can take the lid off the most stubborn pot of Jam"  classic !