Please spare us the vacuous TV tennis commentating

FRIDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Now that a couple of Canadians have made it to the Bigs in professional tennis, let’s tidy up a couple of other oversights.

No greater favour could be done for tennis fans everywhere than to eliminate the fatuous, empty game commentating fed to us by American networks. The extent of their contributions to the education of television tennis viewers can be summed up in the following points.

1. Take the ball early.

2. Dominate.

3. Nerves.

4. Confidence.

5. Mental and physical toughness.

6. Serena.

Lists of 10 are always best but, in this case, there are only those six things the commentators say. Over and over.

If you’ve ever watched a professional game without the vacuous chatter, you’ll know what a joy it is. We could just turn off the volume, but it’s nice to be able to hear the grunts and the whump of the serve and the thock of the tennis ball.

British commentators are second best to none at all, because they don’t feel compelled to fill every second of empty air space with an analysis of how a player took the ball early and seems to be gaining in confidence. Instead, every once in awhile, they’ll say, “Bit of good luck, that.”

Now that Serena is in the twilight of her career and got bounced from Wimbledon early, the commentators have turned their attention to Milos and Genie.

Our two new tennis stars don’t make for particularly good interviews (“I’m just focusing on the next match” and, “It’s part of the plan. I’m not where I want to be yet.”) It’s like they’ve hired the same publicist.

But, they’re Canadian and they’re damned good. If only we were allowed to just watch them play without all the talk in the background.