Everything she says is about 'attacking', 'hitting with confidence', 'going for her shots'. She never says anything technical.
When Lindsay started losing games after being up 4-0, the first thing I noticed was that her hip rotation was slower. She had been hammering home her groundstrokes, really setting up and twisting her hips into the shot. Suddenly she was 'guiding' them. On 90% of her forehands the racket was ending up above her head. You have more control that way, but far less velocity.
Do we hear any of this from Mary Jo Fernandez? No. We don't hear it from Cliff Drysdale either, but he's the host, not the analyst. I don't expect him to know anything about women's tennis. It's Fernandez' JOB to give us insight into the match, not garbage like 'the momentum has shifted'.
When Lindsay raced out to a 4-0 lead, did we hear, 'Davenport is really attacking the Clijster's backhand'? No. We DID hear how many games Lindsay had won in a row, but that's a footnote.
Did we hear how Clijsters was exploiting the slowness with which Davenport gets out of her service follow-through to hit down the line winners off Davenport's serve to duece court? No.
When Davenport starts hitting down the middle to force Clijsters to create her own angles, do we get comment from Fernandez?
This final was an entertaining match, but boy was the commentating low-rent. For all the actual information about how the match was played, I could have watched with the sound off.
Get Hingis, and make it her brief to tell us who's attacking what with what.
Now, as this match wore on, Clijsters threw in everything but the kitchen sink. Dropshots, offensives lobs, lotsa slice, heavy pace. It was a real display of shot-making, the kind we don't see much of. (Other players USE all those shots in a match, but not nearly that much, and no with efficiency.) I can understand why the WTA might not want that pointed out, but it's right there on the screen in front of us.
Isn't the ananlyst supposed to tell us what kind of tactics the players are using, and what they're trying to do?
When Lindsay started losing games after being up 4-0, the first thing I noticed was that her hip rotation was slower. She had been hammering home her groundstrokes, really setting up and twisting her hips into the shot. Suddenly she was 'guiding' them. On 90% of her forehands the racket was ending up above her head. You have more control that way, but far less velocity.
Do we hear any of this from Mary Jo Fernandez? No. We don't hear it from Cliff Drysdale either, but he's the host, not the analyst. I don't expect him to know anything about women's tennis. It's Fernandez' JOB to give us insight into the match, not garbage like 'the momentum has shifted'.
When Lindsay raced out to a 4-0 lead, did we hear, 'Davenport is really attacking the Clijster's backhand'? No. We DID hear how many games Lindsay had won in a row, but that's a footnote.
Did we hear how Clijsters was exploiting the slowness with which Davenport gets out of her service follow-through to hit down the line winners off Davenport's serve to duece court? No.
When Davenport starts hitting down the middle to force Clijsters to create her own angles, do we get comment from Fernandez?
This final was an entertaining match, but boy was the commentating low-rent. For all the actual information about how the match was played, I could have watched with the sound off.
Get Hingis, and make it her brief to tell us who's attacking what with what.
Now, as this match wore on, Clijsters threw in everything but the kitchen sink. Dropshots, offensives lobs, lotsa slice, heavy pace. It was a real display of shot-making, the kind we don't see much of. (Other players USE all those shots in a match, but not nearly that much, and no with efficiency.) I can understand why the WTA might not want that pointed out, but it's right there on the screen in front of us.
Isn't the ananlyst supposed to tell us what kind of tactics the players are using, and what they're trying to do?
. Too bad she can't speak English well enough to be on tv (her English is good, but it sounds foreign, her expressions are weird, and her vocabulary is limited.)
