Great Tennis Journalism 2.0

[skatingfan]

It's very clear that the leading commentators for ESPN - Evert, and J. McEnroe - do not do any research prior to going on air.

[jazzyg]

Tignor knows tennis AND has a good feel for picking winners. You can always cherry pick bad choices, but I read just about every one of his daily trio of picks during the slams and can see exactly where he is coming from. He was all over Sabalenka rebounding to be the best hard court player in the American summer, and even though he proved wrong in taking her to win the first two tournaments she played, he was right ultimately.

All opinions like this are subjective and personal, but I take him a hundred times over Bodo.

I agree Evert and McEnroe do not prepare, but no one is better at reading the early portion of a match and changing his preconceived notion than McEnroe. I love him as a commentator. Evert is terrible, although I don't mind her in the booth because I like her voice, she consistently entertains me (often unintentionally) and she's not right wing when someone with her background would be expected to be ultra conservative. Again, all subjective criteria.

[Fastbackss]

Oh boy, here we go again.
https://awfulannouncing.com/tennis/atp- ... event.html
Interestingly the article intimates it would likely be after the Australian open...and also says that it may be men only.

[ponchi101]

Let's see how their "we are asked to play too much" statements go when offered a MS1000 with a prize money sum in the $15 MM range.

[ti-amie]

Oh boy, here we go again.
https://awfulannouncing.com/tennis/atp- ... event.html
Interestingly the article intimates it would likely be after the Australian open...and also says that it may be men only.

This has been talked about for a few years. Now that SA is branded in both tours I don't see any obstacle to this becoming reality. How individuals like me feel about it is moot at this point.

[ashkor87]

I always liked JMac as expert commentator..he knows the game, reads it well..he may not do his homework but that isn't his job as expert...he does waffle a bit but not as much as the others..Petkovic is great too, Tracy is inane and absurdly pro American ..

[ashkor87]

https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/us ... l-surprise

'experts'?! not one thinks Sinner will win, whereas to me, he is the clear favorite!

Well? What expertise did they demonstrate?

[skatingfan]

https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/us ... l-surprise

'experts'?! not one thinks Sinner will win, whereas to me, he is the clear favorite!

Well? What expertise did they demonstrate?

Yeah, that was clearly a bad call. I wonder if they all just ended up trying to be contradictory by picking against Sinner.

[ashkor87]

Well, I think the simpler answer is- they have very little expertise

[jazzyg]

They did not pick Sinner to win because they thought the doping controversy would be too big of a distraction.

Hardly an outrageous assumption, but it proved inacurrate.

[ponchi101]

https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/us ... l-surprise

'experts'?! not one thinks Sinner will win, whereas to me, he is the clear favorite!

Well? What expertise did they demonstrate?

Ashkor, you do this with frequency. They showed the expertise of picking Sabalenka (most of them). And in the ATP, they picked Alcaraz, hardly an out-on-a-limb forecast.
Indeed, he was a clear favorite to you. At one moment, you gave him 90% chance of winning (in the USO topic). But you also gave Iga 65%, and she did not even make the SF's. So, your expertise is about 50%. You got the men's winner right, you missed the women's totally (you gave Aryna 25%).
When the data backs up your claim, you bring it up. But when it doesn't, let's say that you are glad to discuss other things. For example, you have been very vocal about Alexandrova being a very good player, Alicia parks winning Wimbledon and you love to predict results based on the court speed. But you have been less than accurate about Pegula (an example) and your Parks prediction is truly, at the moment, difficult to agree with.
If the expertise of somebody is immediately eliminated by one wrong prediction, not even you could survive that test.
(I did not think Sinner was going to win, not with that doping issue hanging around. Of course, I was wrong).

[ashkor87]

You and I aren't paid huge money to write about tennis .these 'experts' are..

[skatingfan]

You and I aren't paid huge money to write about tennis .these 'experts' are..

No one gets paid huge amounts of money to write about tennis.

[ponchi101]

You and I aren't paid huge money to write about tennis .these 'experts' are..

Agree. They get paid, and therefore should bring forth better insight.
Predicting a match outcome is basically a 50% routine, unless you were talking picking matches involving Rafa at RG in his prime, or Roger/Novak at Wimbledon or the Aussie. What bothers me most are analysis which are cliche and routine. The famous "easy power" line, the "s/he played the big point better" and such. Those lines are simply dumb; what is the difference between "Easy power" and "Difficult power"? What kind was it that Rafa generated (I never heard anybody saying he generated easy power).
Those are the lines in which you and I would probably agree about in the sense that "the expert" brings nothing to the table.

[ashkor87]

You and I aren't paid huge money to write about tennis .these 'experts' are..

No one gets paid huge amounts of money to write about tennis.

Depends on what you consider huge money!