tennis

I do agree that professional players that cheat in sports in order to make extra money gambling should be banned for life, however I do not think what Denmark’s Caroline Wozniaki did was wrong. Wozniaki is ranked 6th in the world and is often featured in tennis matches on the Tennis channel and ESPN is under investigation for allegedly fixing her last match.

During her match against home town favorite Anne Kremer at the Luxemburg Open, Wozniaki was on her way to easily winning leading 7-5 5-0 before she pulled her hamstring. The injury caused the match to stop and trainers to work on Wozniaki in order for the match to continue. At that time Wozniaki father who is also her tennis coach came over and asked if she could make it through the match and the rest of the tournament. Right away Wozniaki knew she would not be able to compete in the next round so he suggested that she retire out of the tournament and let Kremer advance to the next round in front of her hometown crowd.

Unfortunately many viewers back in Wozniaki homeland Denmark also heard the advice her father gave her in Danish and quickly hopped online and began placing bets online that she would lose the match which she did by retiring. The event caused many online betting websites to make a big deal out what transpired.

While many others and I agree what she did was a truly honorable thing, the WTA Tennis Integrity Unit does not and launched an investigation into whether or not Wozniaki threw the match. Its obvious she could not go on, even the trainers admitted that it would’ve been hard for her to continue in the tournament without really tearing her hamstring even more.

If the WTA is mad at anybody it should be themselves, they are the ones that required the coaches in this case being Wozniaki father to wear a microphone, which allowed everyone to hear what he said. He did not say what he did to tip off betters; he did it out of concern for his daughter. Had she continued to play and won she would’ve dropped out of her next match anyway and also caused further damage to her leg while trying to finish the match against Kremer.

In the new ABC reality show Shaq vs. The newly acquired Cleveland Cavalier center Shaquille ( Shaq ) O'neal will take on other top athletes in their sport. Some of the athletes he will be facing St Louis Cardinals Albert Pujols, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Tennis star Serena Williams, and boxing great Oscar De La Hoya. The show is set to air Aug 18 at 9 pm. The Cavaliers have cleared Shaq to participate in the show as long as he reports to training camp on Sept 16 without injury.

ESPN360.com will broadcast live coverage of 70 matches from 11 women’s professional tennis events over the next six months as they reached an agreement with Sony Ericsson WTA Tour on May 8, 2008. ESPN began with the coverage of The Qatar Telecom German Open in Berlin and will end with the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha. “ESPN360.com exists to serve the passions of sports fans, and there are few groups of fans as passionate as the tennis community,” Damon Phillips, vice president, ESPN360.com said in a statement. “Adding such a robust schedule of events that feature the world’s top women’s tennis players will deliver a huge value to millions of tennis fans, as well as to ESPN360.com affiliates.”

ESPN reached a rights deal with United States Tennis Association to broadcast U.S. Open starting from 2009. This comes after ESPN announced last week that they have extended its Wimbledon rights for six years. ESPN already have deal for the season's first three Grand Slam tournaments like the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon with Tennis Channel. The long-time cable carrier of the U.S. Open USA Network will bring its last year of broadcast this year from Flushing Meadows. This deal will bring nice ad revenue for ESPN and also increase the Tennis audience.

After completing three seasons YES Network is not planning to ahead with the Ultimate Road Trip fourth series. YES started the series during 2005, traveling around U.S and Canada with the Yankees. The second trip during 2006, Kevin Jones among Tiffany Berryman, Maria Bova, Kevin Jones and Julio Pabon won his trip to Japan. Third season Shelli Jackson won the title "Ultimate Road Tripper" among the contestants Brenda Pasono, Eddie Mata, Indio, Shelli Jackson, Dougy Walden, and Justin McManus. Sponsored by GMC and JVC, the show was grand success with good rating and advertiser’s interest last year. The Network is planning to create new Programming around the Yankees.
YES Network president and CEO Tracy Dolgin said “We’re going to create new programming built around the Yankees so that we can deepen our brand, the best way to run a TV network is to make moves when things are going well.”

Madison Square Garden Network's sister group FSN New York regional sports network(FSNY), which was renamed as MSG Plus on March 10, started with its coverage of Pete Sampras-Roger Federer exhibition tennis match. The Network had reached the coverage to 82,000 households and had attained a rating of 1.11 households. Apart from NHL game coverage during 2006, the network had scored its high-rated program by delivering the world’s No. 1 Federer beating Pete Sampras.

Sports fans have always been attracted to Satellite TV and the first to choose it over the competitors. Why is this? Well, one reason is that Satellite TV has always been the top source for exclusive sports packages -- sports coverage you can’t get anywhere else. Cable doesn’t offer exclusive sports programs and neither does Dish. So what exactly does Satellite TV offer? A lot of people have heard of the NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL Sunday Ticket SuperFan packages. These exclusive packages take you far beyond typical NFL coverage. Programming includes up to 14 games a week, compared to only 4 on cable. You can watch your favorite NFL teams wherever you are!Say you're a Patriots fan and you've moved to the Mid-West. You don’t want to miss out on your favorite team! The NFL SUNDAY TICKET allows you to keep up with your favorite teams no matter where you are. And if you get the SuperFan package, you’ll get over 150 games in HD, equalling a whopping 9 games in HD per week. You’ll also get 8 games on one screen with Game Mix and highlights on Red Zone channel from FOX and CBS games.The NASCAR HotPass, designed for the NASCAR enthusiast, has interactive features which give the viewer more dimensionality to the sport and a closer look at the fast-paced races. It is truly an unbeatable experience to view the road like the driver does.Every Spring, Satellite TV subscribers have the option to add the NCAA Mega March Madness package, the ticket to the action leading up to the FInal Four Semi-Finals and college basketball at its best! The 2008 season is almost upon us and proves to be just as exciting as last year. You can watch out-of-region games from the first three rounds of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. The regional games will continue to be aired by your local CBS broadcast network. Another exclusive sports package on Satellite TV is the US Open Interactive on USA, a celebration of tennis at its finest with five live matches plus USA’s featured match on the US Open Mix Channel. Exclusive sports packages like these are the name of the game on Satellite TV. Why go with Dish or cable when you’ll be locked into just okay sports programming? With Satellite TV, you’ll have access to all the games of the sport of your choice!

The Tennis Channel, which covered the three matches played between World No. 1 Roger Federer and all-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras in a series of matches in three Asian cities in November 2007 will cover the exihibition match to be played between these Tennis stars in Madison Square Garden(MSG) on March 17. John McEnroe and Ted Robinson will cover and analyze the match, Justin Gimelstob will talk to the celebrities. Tennis channel executive vice president of programming and network strategy Victoria Quoss said "Madison Square Garden is the perfect arena for this match between two of the game’s all-time heavyweights, and for their first meeting in the U.S."

More great news for sports fans! Satellite TV added The Tennis Channel HD and College Sports Television HD (CSTV) to its high definition lineup. A spokesperson for The Tennis Channel said that the Tennis Channel has been shooting original productions in high-def since early this year. Starting in 2008, the channel will start producing live tournaments in HD. Satellite TV will be the sole carrier of the channel on its debut.  I hope it starts in time to see the Australian Open in late January!