Sports

ESPN’S OPEN COVERAGE MISSES THE POINT

THIS is why ESPN can’t have nice things:

Playing in the Australian Open on ESPN2, yesterday, Roger Federer was about to lose the first set to Tomas Berdych – remarkable! – when ESPN’s Cliff Drysdale said, “It’ll be very interesting to watch the early stages of the second set to see how Federer reacts to losing the first, whether he turns on the after-burners.”

Yes, very interesting. But don’t tell us, Cliff, tell ESPN!

ESPN then cut to commercials, followed by a taped promo that encouraged those already watching Federer play in the Austrailian Open on ESPN2, not to miss Roger Federer playing in the Australian Open on ESPN2.

By the time ESPN2 returned us to the match, Federer had already won the first game of the second set!

Saturday morning, Andy Murray was beating Jurgen Melzer, 7-5, 6-0, 3-1, although I can’t swear to it; it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on when ESPN’s at the wheel – when ESPN2 further fractionalized our attention with a now-read-this graphic.

Murray, the graphic informed us, was also ahead on break points!

But by the time that dopey graphic appeared, anyone who had chosen to watch ESPN2’s live coverage had likely had their attention so subdivided and diffused that they read something like, “X-Games On ESPN’s Chris Mortensen Reveals Breaks In Points Today On ABC, Murray.”

There’s no event too big or too small that it won’t be wrecked by ESPN. There’s nothing that ESPN touches that doesn’t leave sports fans wishing that the nation’s all-sports network had chosen to specialize in something else.

The weekend’s Australian Open coverage, depending on how you endeavored to look at it, was just another ESPN tragedy or comedy, either way, a farce.

Shucks, even with the fifth set of Saturday’s Richard Gasquet-Fernando Gonzalez match at 10-10 – 10 to 10, for crying out loud! – ESPN’s designed-to-intrude crawl continued its indiscriminate mission to both distract viewers and minimize the view.

Not even for one minute in this 4:09 match would ESPN allow us a break from repeated (and repeated, and repeated) and unlikely word that Mortensen broke yet another story, Winter X-Games results and upcoming X-Games and NBA action on ABC and ESPN.

Yet, anyone who gets ESPN2 also gets ESPN, thus anyone who actually wanted to read X-Games results and the latest “scoop” that ESPN was crediting Mortensen as opposed to watching a tennis major could have read that (over and over and over) on ESPN!

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During its late-morning live tennis coverage, ESPN2’s crawl suddenly issued a “Breaking News” alert: N.C. State basketball coach Kay Yow had died of cancer. Certainly that was worth knowing, and worthy of interruption. That’s how ESPN’s news crawl, during live coverage of sports events, should be used.

But then ESPN2 repeated that graphic – “Breaking News: N.C. State Women’s Basketball Coach Kay Yow Dies At 66” – on a continuum, nothing in between, 19 times, apparently for those who missed it the 17th or 18th time.

ESPN seemed eager to report this news and to revel in it, and it reported it with as much indiscriminate excess as it applies to everything else.

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The last time I read one of Joe Torre‘s tell-all books, he claimed that he assiduously avoids reading the sports pages in the local newspapers, not one word. Soon after, WFAN began to carry commercials in which Torre claimed he read every word, every day, of a local newspaper’s sports section.

Not that ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball can get any worse, but this year it’ll have a three-man booth with Steve Phillips joining Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. . . . What were the odds, five years ago, that Friday night Kenny Albert would call the Knicks’ telecast on MSG while Marv Albert called the Nets’ telecast on YES?

Any stat, any time: With 3:50 played in yesterday’s Michigan State-Ohio State game, a CBS graphic noted that both teams were 1-for-3 on 3-point shots. Thanks. If you were at that game and the fellow seated next to you bothered you with such info, would you call security, or risk a successful justifiable homicide defense?

Speaking of which, ESPN’s Chris Fowler, Saturday, might have chosen to say that Saturday’s Gasquet-Gonzalez match, “is now four hours long.” Instead, he went with, “This match has just clicked over to the four-hour mark.” Oy.

Verne Lundquist, after mentioning that yesterday’s game was only Ohio State’s second home sellout, suggested that’s because 13-4 OSU is a “young team.” But it’s not easy selling 19,000 tickets when your schedule is padded with Bowling Green, UNC-Asheville, Jacksonville, Samford, Iona and Houston Baptist.

What’s in a name? New York’s Mercy College men’s basketball team is 0-17, having lost by unmerciful scores of 85-41, 101-42 and 105-43.

phil.mushnick@nypost.com