E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Roger Federer and Andy Roddick played perhaps one of the greatest Wimbledon finals ever on Sunday.
Federer, who had never broken Roddick’s service during the four-hour, five- set match, did so only once to win the championship. It was a match memorable for the event as also played in front of some greatest tennis players of the game Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver, Manuel Santana, Ilie Nastase along with Sampras.
When the whole world was watching the match, what were Indians watching?
Our sports minister Manohar Singh Gill probably had a ringside seat at centre court like last year. How did his countrymen who depend on Doordarshan watch the match?
They didn’t.
It is a crying shame that the Wimbledon men’s finals was not scheduled to be shown at all on our so-called “National Network”.
What was scheduled was the live telecast of the 4th one-day international between India and West Indies. India already had a 2-1 lead in the series and even if they had lost the match, would have leveled the series at 2-2.
Tennis was shown on DD only because play was stopped in the rain-affected ODI, and finally the cricket match was abandoned. This is the fate of international tennis final vis-a- vis an inconsequential cricket match.
It is true that sports channels like ESPN or Star Sports show these matches live. But should those who do not subscribe to the cable network miss such matches because of shortsighted policy of DD mandarins? Who decides on such issues anyway?
DD has a ‘dedicated’ sports channel which was showing some badminton match from the files.
In all fairness, DD had telecast live the ladies single the previous evening. But when it comes to cricket, every other sport, has to suffer the ignominy of playing second fiddle.
What if Leander Paes had reached the finals?
Thanks so much for this post.
In all fairness, DD had telecast live the ladies single the previous evening. But when it comes to cricket, every other sport, has to suffer the ignominy of playing second fiddle.
This is so true. I have voluntarily abandoned watching and following cricket for the sake of other sports’ future, though at one time being a big cricket fan. My bit of service through such small sacrifices is to help promote other sports.
This is true, especially bcoz millions of viewers still depend on DD.
It is important to promote all the sports equally, so sad that even after the commendable performance at Olympics and the later events , athletes are not sought after by the media and other PR people. It is every one’s responsibility.
In this ‘state’ of absolute negligence, indifference and callousness, it is sheer wonder that we produce talents like Paes, Bhupathi and Sania. May be we need to wait for the next millenium to get a Federer of our own.
Had an Indian been playing in the final, I would agree with this post. I don’t think giving precedence to a Cricket match involving India over a Tennis finale between two foreign players was wrong in any way. But there is no excuse for playing some old Badminton match on the sports channel (as claimed here) when the finals was on.
DD sport was also telecasting live National Batminton. DD is for the masses, so it telecast what the masses watch
I was watching Wimbeldon finals, while my friend insisting on switching channels to watch India WestIndies game. Thankfully, the game was washed out.
Doordarshan is only playing to the gallery and in the bargain they hope to make money.
Cricket sells in India. Tennis does not.
Simply because we succeed at cricket, while we don’t suceed in tennis.
We succeed in cricket, because there is less competiton. (only 10-14 countries play it).
Everybody loves success and We love to watch those who make us feel good about ourselves, our country.
We fail in tennis and every other major global sport because of tough competition from 220 countries in the world.
We succeed in FP games (Full Pant games) becuse it requires lesser stamina. We do relatively well in FP games like cricket, golf, billiards, snooker, shooting and chess
We do badly in HP games (Half pant games) which require lot of stamina and sweat and strength like hockey, football, volley ball, athletics, track and field events, swimming, diving, basketball, cycling, rowing, gymnastics, table tennis, lawn tennis, and a host of others.
Simple,
Full Pant games :)
BTW I doubt if we every did relatively well at golf though a Fijian of Indian descent did well. At chess, it was just 1 man who did very well. Which leaves out only Full Pant games which are not very competitive and require less stamina. Pretty lean pickings. And it is possibly not our lack of stamina to blame – sportspeople of Indian descent in other countries have done well at competitive sport (including winning olympic medals).
I disagree with the post. First and foremost, we should promote our own countrymen over others no matter what kind of sport they are in. Had it been between Cricket and any other sport I would agree with your argument that we should promote other sports.
Dear E.R.R I think u just watched DD when the match started. But the truth is that there was a telecast of that final match in DD. Coz we watched the ma tch on DD only. I don’t know whether they telecasted tennis coz the cricket match was washed out or they were scheduled to telecast tennis only.
Tell me frankly if u do a servey asking which shuld be telecasted cricket or tennis how many votes did tennis get? then why shud we have to blame DD for telecasting cricket instead of tennis? whether it paes or fedex DD does which is demanded by the public. BTW some people went to court to get an order that all one dayers shud be telecasted inDD so they were following the order Isuppose.
Valid point, but this would be a shame if there are large numbers of tv owners without cable. Anyone knows how many that would be?
Honestly i was more interested in watching Federer eyeing a place in history rather then the dead boring India WI match where play stopped for 30 mins after every 5 mins of play.
I was disappointed to see that the DD sports channel was telecasting some Badminton match here it could have shwn the great final…
GOD too knows what is best and probably in order to avoid agony to millions of sport lovers let rain pour in the unworthy match so that the sport lovers coukd enjoy one of the best matches in tennis history
It is not cricket!
Ok, how many watched the final stages of the Ashes first test!
James Anderson and Monty Panesar produced the most important innings of their lives as England’s final pair survived 11.3 overs to pull off a thrilling escape at Cardiff. When Paul Collingwood fell for a monumental 245-ball 74 England still trailed by six, but once Australia had to bat again, valuable time was taken out of the game leaving Andrew Strauss and a packed Cardiff nervously clock-watching. The Australians threw everything into the final hour in an electric atmosphere with the crowd cheering the two unlikely batting heroes as though the Ashes had been won.
It was fantastic game of Cricket, the fight for Ashes is a real fight!
STOP blaming DD !!
Rediff, in its new avatar, has renamed its earlier Sports section as CRICKET. Unbelievable !!
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