c/o Danielle Parhizkaran

Amidst all of the chaos that occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the most recognizable changes within media were the lengths to which professional sports entities and their broadcasters went to produce live sports. For the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tennis tours, entities that move hundreds of athletes from continent to continent by the week, some truly drastic problem solving was needed. 

As tennis faced difficulty maintaining its fanbase in an era post-Federer and post-Williams sisters, the pandemic made it no easier for tournaments and production companies to promote the sport. Venues make money from ticket sales, and the tournaments held at those venues make money from television deals. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) suspended the tour entirely in March 2020 and resumed in August with an augmented schedule at empty venues. No sponsors got returns on their investments from the venues because there were no fans paying to come. No fans also meant no staff, which exacerbated the local economic turmoil that COVID caused in the communities around these venues. 

What makes professional tennis even more difficult to schedule than any American sports league is that the tour is international, so the players had to follow a different safety protocol depending on local and national regulations. Instead of hosting tournaments in multiple cities during regional swings of the tour, they would host multiple tournaments at the same venue under different sponsorships. Both the ATP and WTA Tours held three successive tournaments in 2021 at Melbourne Park, where they host the Australian Open, instead of the historically scheduled Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane events. Likewise, both tours played the 2020 Cincinnati Masters at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York, where they host the U.S. Open. None of these tournaments allowed more than 50% fan capacity at their respective venues. 

The worst of what COVID unleashed on the tennis tour was the 2021 Australian Open. With a mandatory two-week quarantine to enter Australia, all players (some with their families and children) stayed in hotels, unable to practice, only to lose in the first round of the tournament. Some players decided to opt out of the Australian swing entirely. To make matters worse, a lockdown issued by the state after the tournament had started forced Melbourne Park to restrict fans entirely from the initial 50% for a few days. In response, the broadcasters decided to add an applause track after every point in order to make up for the lost ambiance provided by the fans. However, instead of replicating the atmosphere of a packed house while in an empty stadium, the system would periodically glitch and play the track during the point. Furthermore, hearing the same exact applause track after every point regardless of quality ultimately became tedious for the viewer. The applause track also inhibited those watching the broadcasts from the unique experience of being able to hear what the players say to themselves or their player boxes between points, as the microphones on the court did not have to compete with the chatter of a crowd. 

The most detrimental precedent that the 2021 Australian Open set was the elimination of line judges entirely from on-court officiating. Since 2006, professional tennis has used a Sony-developed camera system called “Hawk-Eye” that digitally generates an accurate image of the ball’s mark. Until 2021, the tour had implemented Hawk-Eye in tandem with officiating by the line judges. The umpires would call the balls as they saw them, and if a player wanted to contest an initial call, they were allotted three “challenges” per set to overturn it. This combination served as a source of great tension between the players and officials, and conversely a source of great entertainment to the viewer. There was always the initial excitement from fans, players, and umpires alike while everyone awaited the digital rendering of the mark to come up on the screen. Then, arguments would occur all the time between umpires and players about whether the call should be overturned, if the call interfered with the shot or not, and the occasional Hail Mary claim by players that the computer system itself was incorrect. Since that decision is the judgment call of the chair umpire, players often have rather testy spats with them that ultimately do not result in anything. Nonetheless, the images of close margins and the ensuing fights make for great television and raise the stakes of the match for the viewer. Some of the sport’s most viral clips are replays of close challenges and the ensuing fights with umpires.

Now, with the elimination of umpires altogether, these arguments are gone. Instead, an automated voice of an umpire makes an immediate final call. Matches are more succinct, and there is no more fighting about line-calls. The logic behind the decision is understandable, and there is no reason for the tournaments to bring line judges back after having gotten rid of them. On the financial front, these events now have about 300 fewer employees’ salaries to pay, which most certainly factored into the decision, especially since the tournament was not making any money from ticket sales. This strategy has spread to the rest of the tour’s hardcourt tournaments, as all Masters events in Australia and the U.S. (the only events that get broadcasting deals with EuroSport or ESPN) have since opted into entirely electronic line-calling.

Now, I am not arguing that precision within the sport is a bad thing, nor do I blame these tournaments for removing line judges. Line-calls should be correct. Budgeting decisions like these too are what have kept events afloat through the economic turmoil of COVID-19. However, tennis broadcasters have failed to adapt on a large scale to the sport’s economizing and the avenue for which there was the highest potential for television moments. The networks themselves have taken some budgeting shortcuts of their own through the pandemic. ESPN, the network with the American rights to all the Majors except the French Open, no longer sends an entire production team to Australia or the United Kingdom and has instead opted to conduct their coverage from their flagship studio in the U.S. while sending a few analysts to provide information onsite. Having a smaller physical presence on the ground sacrifices the opportunity for journalists to get insight into the players, coaches, and atmosphere of the tournament at large. ESPN now resorts to press conference footage for firsthand accounts from the players instead of formerly having them come to the set desk and interviewing players directly. This is not to say that there are no solutions or opportunities for creativity in tennis broadcasting. 

New regulations in 2022 regarding coaching during ATP and WTA matches have made it so that players can interact with their coaches in between points. Up until then, no coaching was allowed from the player box to the court, and, after the infamous controversy between Serena Williams and the chair umpire during the 2018 U.S. Open final where she was penalized late in the second set for a coaching violation, the professional tours reconsidered the rule. Since 2008, the WTA has allowed on-court coaching at tour events once per set. The coaches are mic’d up for these conversations, which has given viewers at home some incredible entertainment as well as valuable insight into the psyche of professional athletes as they either cooperate, argue with, or even ignore their coach’s advice. If players can now talk to their coaches at all times, why not mic up the coaches for the whole? There are already cameras mounted in the player boxes, and often I have been left attempting to lip-read whatever conversation is occurring between the player and coach. That simple shift alone helps both the broadcasters and the viewers craft a more well-rounded and in-depth narrative for their commentary on matches while having virtually no impact on how the match itself unfolds.

The great news for the sport is that, since fear around COVID-19 has generally dissipated, people are desperate to go outside again! The past four Grand Slams were the most attended editions in each individual tournament’s history, and the 2023 Australian Open became the most attended tennis tournament ever held, with a total of over 902,000 fans visiting over its fortnight. Venues are making more money, which means they are drawing investors and sponsorship, which means these events can expand their outreach as tourist destinations as well as local employers. As far as how this physical turnout translates to television ratings, it is up to the broadcasters, especially at American tournaments, to craft a more meaningful and entertaining narrative throughout their coverage than they have been able to in the wake of tennis’ changes through COVID-19. 

Mac Katkavich can be reached at mkatkavich@wesleyan.edu.