[vernotixas]

ESPN hosted a conference call/press conference this afternoon to publicize its coverage of the Championships that begins on Monday, June 22 at 7a on the East Coast of the United States. With Wimbledon Live not available in the States ESPN via its broadband online site ESPN360.com, as well as its television coverage on ESPN2, has stepped up and will provide extensive coverage for its viewers. ESPN360 is free if your ISP provides access to it. All coverage will be broadcast in HD.

There were quite a few internet journalists on the call and while left until the end they represented themselves well.

The featured speakers were broadcasters Patrick McEnroe and Mary Carillo. ESPN also made Len deLuca and Jamie Reynolds available to provide insight from the business end of tennis coverage.

Highlights

• Other than the top three men – Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray, Andy Roddick is given the best chance if the draw breaks his way. This means that Roger Federer and Andy Murray would be on the other side of the draw from Roddick.

• Both Rafa and Federer will be ready to play.

• Murray will have problems going deep especially since he tends to go on walkabout during a match. Best of five may also tax him physically.

• All of the Serbian players, Novak Djokovic, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic are struggling.

• Men's Dark Horses: Robin Soderling, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Marin Cilic

• None of the American men other than Roddick – James Blake, Sam Querrey or Mardy Fish - are threats to go really deep. Querrey and Fish may make the second week.

• Only Venus Williams and Serena Williams have "swagger" coming into the tournament. (A Mary Carillo quote)

• Dinara Safina has expressed her dislike for grass which made Mary Carillo wonder why she is seeded Number One over Venus. PMac thought that the AELTC was correct in sticking to the seedings. No one asked about Maria Sharapova’s seeding.

• Maria Sharapova’s return to the tour is still problematic despite her prior success at Wimbledon.

• Women’s Dark Horses: Samantha Stosur, Li Na, Zheng Jie, Victoria Azarenka, Svetlana Kuznetsova.

• Very dark horse Marion Bartoli

• Grunting control will be hard to administer in real match play. The time to stop it is when the players are kids.

• PMac dismissed complaints about the dominance of hard court play by the Europeans saying that the US has actually lost a couple of tournaments. He also said that indoor play is much harder on the body than an outdoor hard court. He also cited Roger Federer’s almost total lack of indoor play.

[pharmablogger]

• Only Venus Williams and Serena Williams have "swagger" coming into the tournament. (A Mary Carillo quote)

I love Mary Carillo!

• Grunting control will be hard to administer in real match play. The time to stop it is when the players are kids.

That's exactly what I said in the Grunters thread.

[berdyanskdotsu]

Glad TAT got to listen in.

I have no idea what P-Mac is talking about re: indoor being harder on the body than outdoor. There's no sun, wind, or heat to adjust to indoors, so that sounds like hooey to me.