ESPN shift in Australian Open coverage challenging for fans

Tennis followers used to staying up by means of the night time to look at the Australian Open have needed to change their viewing habits and are having bother discovering among the matches they need to see.

ESPN has dramatically lowered the quantity of protection on ESPN2 in the course of the first week of the primary Grand Slam occasion of the yr, leaving the in a single day hours solely on its ESPN+ streaming service.

ESPN+ is meant to have all of the matches obtainable stay, but it surely has skilled technical issues over the primary couple of days. Followers had been notably upset — and mentioned so on social media — that Wednesday’s second-round match between Individuals Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe couldn't be considered on any platform. There was a graphic saying it was on ESPN+ but it surely wasn’t there.

ESPN communications director Dave Nagle mentioned “a mix of things” led to sure matches being unavailable on ESPN+ on Wednesday night time.

“Fritz vs. Tiafoe ought to have been lined stay in full on one among our platforms. We have now addressed the problem and our plan is to make sure all matches can be found stay going ahead,” Nagle mentioned. “The mix of ESPN+ and our networks, together with ESPN3, will increase our capability to ship complete protection of tennis majors and convey extra tennis to followers.”

ESPN2 has protection by means of Sunday’s Spherical of 16 matches from 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. EST earlier than providing longer protection home windows starting with the quarterfinals. In previous years, ESPN2 would have as much as 10 hours of day by day protection the primary week from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. EST.

ESPN+ can carry motion from virtually each court docket and matches can be found when accomplished. However ESPN+ can also be a premium streaming service, that means followers need to pay extra on high of what they're doling out for cable already.

Sports activities Illustrated govt editor and Tennis Channel commentator Jon Wertheim captured the temper amongst many when he tweeted Wednesday night time: “When you had been authoring the handbook “the right way to kill a sport”.... there are method too many different leisure choices obtainable to play hide-and-seek like this. stateside for @AustralianOpen for one of many few occasions over the past 20 years, I've new appreciation for followers’ frustration.”

In the course of the second week of the event, ESPN+ could have at the least two quarterfinal matches solely on Jan. 24 and 25.

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Extra AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports