ESPN2, Tennis Channel Deliver Sony Ericsson Championships Coverage

Tennis Channel and ESPN2 will provide 30 hours of live coverage of next week’s 2008 Sony Ericsson Championships, the season-ending women’s tennis event that features the world’s top eight singles players and top four doubles teams. The tournament from Doha, Qatar will air on the networks starting Tuesday, Nov. 4 through Sunday, Nov. 9 with almost all of the matches telecast in high definition. Including replays, the networks will offer close to 70 combined hours of HD match coverage.

Tennis Channel will carry all the round-robin matches, singles semifinals and doubles play. ESPN2 will telecast the singles final on Sunday, Nov. 9 at 12 p.m. ET. Tennis Channel will follow its network’s live coverage with daily encores of each match in addition to a same-day repeat of the singles final.

“This year Tennis Channel will offer more coverage of the Sony Ericsson Championships than ever before on U.S. television,” Victoria Quoss, Tennis Channel’s executive vice president, programming and network strategy, said in a statement. “The tournament is the climactic end to the entire season, and we’re excited that our viewers will be there for every point as the 2008 champion is crowned.”

Veteran sportscaster Barry MacKay will call the Sony Ericsson Championships on Tennis Channel, along with analysis from former No. 1 doubles player Corina Morariu and, making her debut in the network’s broadcast booth, former singles and doubles No. 1 Lindsay Davenport.

Cliff Drysdale and Pam Shriver will cover the singles championship on ESPN2.

The Sony Ericsson Championships conclude the annual women’s professional tennis season.  Singles competition initially takes place within two groups of four players each.  Every player has one match against each of the other three women in her group, with the top two players in each group advancing to the single-elimination semifinals and subsequent championship. On the doubles side, the four teams that qualify for the Sony Ericsson Championships compete in a single-elimination semifinal and championship during the last two days of the event.