The Sport Thread

All of the commentary seems to be from London with 12 commentators and shift changes at around 4am and 8am, plus an additional pair for UK opt-outs on ES2 mid-week.

Really? Because some of the Commentary acoustics of some of the games I've been watching, sound very 'woody' as they sound like they are in a glorified garden shed - rather than the perfect but dull 'warm' sound of a off tube commentary booth in Feltham.

I’ll admit to enjoying a few of these without Comms via the player. Enables self perception and indeed more immersive viewing too.

I don't know if it's Feltham specifically, but they certainly haven't flown any of them out to Melbourne.

I've seen a feature on Kerber and Zverev shown untranslated from German, an interview with Thiem also untranslated from German, and and interview with Nadal untranslated from Spanish so far. That's not to say there have been no translations at all. It seems to depend on which commentator is on and whether they can translate or have a script available. There has also been an episode of Game Schett and Mats with no commentator to fill in the highlights segments so some of the clips were lacking context.

There is no UK-specific presentation, the only presenters in vision have been Barbara Schett and Mats Wilander so we're almost always getting the pan-European version. That's not necessarily a bad thing as they are very good, but it contrasts with what they have done in previous years. Matches chosen for coverage on Eurosport 1 & 2 were, let's say, "interesting" in the first and second rounds.

All of the commentary seems to be from London with 12 commentators and shift changes at around 4am and 8am, plus an additional pair for UK opt-outs on ES2 mid-week.

Annabel Croft is in Melbourne but I've only seen her on TV once this whole week interviewing Heather Watson well after her match. French Eurosport have Justine Henin who has appeared on the English language presentation with Schett and Wilander a couple of times.

Annabel Croft has been doing the intros into each segment of highlights later in the day on Eurosport 1. I’ve been watching the repeat of Game Schett and Mars at 11.25 pm each night. So far every interview not in English had been translated either by Chris Bradnam or Simon Reed, whoever did the last commentary of the night session. Maybe they sometimes don’t have the translations ready for the live broadcast earlier in the day. I don’t mind the international on screen presentation. At least they are out there and as you say it’s very good and it never made financial sense to me to duplicate with different analysis for UK viewers. It’s a real shame though that they didn’t send any commentators out there. The overnight commentary is no where near as good as it used to be.

It’s clear British Eurosport have massively cut back on budgets this year. They’ve clearly spent most of their money on the Olympics rights. I also don’t believe that Eurosport are really committed to tennis anymore. The amount of coverage they show has decreased massively in recent years. I wonder will Amazon pick up the rights to the Australian and French Opens when they come up for grabs after next years tournaments. I hope not but I suspect they will.

Completely agree. I do wonder with Eurosport cutting back assuming Amazon don't snap it up whether they'd be willing to share the rights with an FTA broadcaster again as they did for many years with the BBC.

I've seen a feature on Kerber and Zverev shown untranslated from German, an interview with Thiem also untranslated from German, and and interview with Nadal untranslated from Spanish so far. That's not to say there have been no translations at all. It seems to depend on which commentator is on and whether they can translate or have a script available. There has also been an episode of Game Schett and Mats with no commentator to fill in the highlights segments so some of the clips were lacking context.

There is no UK-specific presentation, the only presenters in vision have been Barbara Schett and Mats Wilander so we're almost always getting the pan-European version. That's not necessarily a bad thing as they are very good, but it contrasts with what they have done in previous years. Matches chosen for coverage on Eurosport 1 & 2 were, let's say, "interesting" in the first and second rounds.

All of the commentary seems to be from London with 12 commentators and shift changes at around 4am and 8am, plus an additional pair for UK opt-outs on ES2 mid-week.

Annabel Croft is in Melbourne but I've only seen her on TV once this whole week interviewing Heather Watson well after her match. French Eurosport have Justine Henin who has appeared on the English language presentation with Schett and Wilander a couple of times.