Anna plays Jelena Dokic on the Rod Laver Arena evening-session
tomorrow (Wednesday), but the BBC is threatening to renege on its
promise to televise this session, in order to show recorded men's
matches instead! :-||

I have posted a complaint to the BBC at the following locations:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/3701180.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bbc-ao-blog

The more people who complain, the more likely the BBC will be to
repent and show Anna v Jelena after all.

My complaint:

I am writing to express my disappointment in the strongest possible
terms about the ongoing decisions to show repeats of Australian Open
Men's Singles matches on BBCi at 08:30 GMT on Tuesday 20th and
Wednesday 21st January 2009 - instead of live coverage of the Women's
Singles matches at these times.

Just before the Australian Open began, the BBC promised live coverage
of the Rod Laver Arena evening-sessions at these times, so the
decisions to renege on this promise are completely unfair to fans who
take their annual leave to watch the BBC's coverage primarily for
women's tennis.

On Tuesday, BBCi showed a repeat of the match between Andy Murray and
Andrei Pavel at 08:30 GMT, missing the first hour of Stosur v
Zakopalová - and at the time this decision was made, it was highly
probable that BBCi would have missed the whole match.

On Wednesday, BBCi plans to show repeats of Chardy v Ðokovic and
Korolev v Federer at 08:30 GMT, overriding the Women's Singles match
between Jelena Dokic and Anna Chakvetadze, which I (and no doubt many
others) had had my heart set on watching since the draw was made.
The players and the order-of-play committee have kept up their end of
the bargain - please now keep up your end.

There's really no excuse for these reprehensible decisions. Fans who
want to watch the men's matches from the Australian day-session have
the opportunity to watch them live on BBCi during the night, or to
watch one of the endless repeats on BBCi (both before 08:30 GMT, and
after live coverage of the evening-session).

Please be reasonable tomorrow, and do not let down fans of women's
tennis by reneging on the BBC's promise to show live coverage of the
Rod Laver Arena evening-session. Dokic and Chakvetadze are two of the
most talented and attractive stars of the women's game, and we have
been waiting since Wimbledon 2004 to see Dokic on the BBC.

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://tinyurl.com/andrewbroad-tennis