FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
TENNIS
KLMNO
S
HOCKEY
Capitals worked to play outside
team in Winter Classic
by Tarik El-Bashir
THIERRY ROGE/REUTERS
Francesca Schiavone kissed the clay at Roland Garros on Thursday after becoming the first Italian woman to advance to a Grand Slam final.
Schiavone, Stosur set up unlikely match
Women’s event
Saturday will boast two first-time Slam finalists
Associated Press
Go figure: The women’s French
Open final will be between a clay- kissing Italian and a giant-killing Australian. Francesca Schiavone will play Samantha Stosur on Saturday, the latest surprise in a week full of them at Roland Garros. Both are first-time Grand Slam final- ists. “We’re both going to be excit-
ed,” Stosur said. “It’s a great op- portunity for both of us.” Schia- vone became the first Italian woman to reach a major final Thursday when opponent Elena Dementieva unexpectedly retired with a left calf injury after losing the first set 7-6 (7-3).
Stosur then became the first
Australian woman in 30 years to reach a Grand Slam final by drub- bing former No. 1 Jelena Jankov- ic, 6-1, 6-2. The No. 7-seeded Stosur won with the same big serve and
booming forehand that helped her upset four-time French Open champion Justine Henin and 12- time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams this week. The two semifinals lasted bare-
ly two hours between them, and the first match ended abruptly. After Dementieva lost the first set, she walked up to Schiavone, who was sitting in her change- over chair, and extended a hand in concession. “For the moment, I don’t un- derstand what’s going on,” Schia- vone said. The Italian then fell to her knees to kiss the court in a re- prise of her quarterfinal celebra- tion and rose with a clay-caked grin. How did the clay taste? “It was good,” Schiavone said.
“So good.” The 29-year-old Schia- vone had never previously ad- vanced beyond the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam. “I’ve already made history for
my country,” she said. “In Italy, also, they are very happy, and is time to enjoy for us, for every- body.” While Italians celebrated, Dementieva sobbed before head- ing for the exit. It’s the first time in the Open era that a woman re-
tired in a semifinal or final at Ro- land Garros. The Russian said she suffered a tear in her calf in the second round, and she nearly retired during a match last week. “It was very painful to even
walk,” Dementieva said. “It was a bit too much. I couldn’t really move on the court.” The second match was even shorter than the first, lasting only an hour. Stosur became the first Australian wom- an to reach a Grand Slam final since Wendy Turnbull, the run- ner-up at the 1980 Australian Open.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” Sto- sur told the crowd after the match. “It wasn’t easy to get here. I’m very pleased.” She began the semifinal swinging with the same confidence she showed in her earlier upsets, and after falling behind 2-0 in the second set, she swept the final six games. Stosur hit seven aces, lost only six points on her first serve and doubled the overmatched Jankovic in win- ners, 18-9. “She’s a strong girl,” Jankovic
said. “You can see by looking at her physically. She can hit pretty big, and she has one of the strongest serves in the women’s
COMMENTARY
SALLY JENKINS
Even toddlers bump the U-Conn. women
jenkins from D1
“First off, I’m not sure the study accurately reflects the overall presentation of ‘SportsCenter,’ ” coordinating producer Craig Bengtson says. “It’s on the air 14 hours a day. I can tell you this: Every day every sport and every event is on the table . . . We consider all of them. But we can’t do all of them. In general, we do focus on the most popular athletes and teams in sports, those the majority of fans have interest in, and that enable us to satisfy a greater number of viewers at one time.” To give credit where it’s due,
ESPN’s fills airtime on its ancillaries such as ESPNU with plenty of live coverage of women’s sports, 1,300 hours worth this year. It does a particularly good job on the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, showing all 48 games on various outlets. That said, why such a
near-total eclipse of women on the highlight show? The TV audience for major women’s sports isn’t that small. Take college basketball. The men’s sweet 16 on CBS averaged 4.9 million viewers. By way of comparison, the 12 women’s tournament games aired on ESPN’s main outlet averaged 1.6 million viewers. The title game between U-Conn. and Stanford drew an average of 3.5 million viewers, up 32 percent from last year. Yet, oddly, the women’s tournament was hardly mentioned on ESPN’s flagship, “SportsCenter.” Messner looked at the
“SportsCenter” 11 p.m. edition over a two-week period in March 2009, when both tournaments were in full swing. “SportsCenter” aired 40 reports on the men. How many stories did it devote to the women, airing on its own channel? Four.
On the ticker crawl, the men got 56 references. The women? Seven.
ESPN wasn’t alone. If you lived
in Los Angeles and counted on your local network affiliate for a story about the women’s tournament, you were out of luck. If you watched KABC in the evening of March 20, you were treated to a lengthy feature about Shaquille O’Neal “going mano a mano” with a 97-year-old grandmother in filling out his men’s bracket. On March 24, KABC did a lengthy feature on a local toddler who is already a “pool prodigy” at the age of 2. Basically, even toddlers bumped U-Conn. Why does it matter what’s on highlight shows? Because they set the agenda for viewers. “These shows have a centrality,” Messner says. “They tell us what’s happening out there, and they are important in telling us what matters and what we should be paying attention to. It becomes part of what either builds or contracts the public sensibility for what to watch, what’s exciting, or even what’s available.” There’s no easy answer to the question of why women’s sports don’t get more traction with
mass audiences. The issue is not just that men aren’t watching women’s sports, but that huge numbers of women aren’t watching either. Personally, a pack of mules couldn’t drag me to an LPGA telecast. That said, it’s difficult for any
sport to develop connections with viewers when no one sees their replays, hears their echoes, or gets to know the players. The trouble with assumptions about audiences is that they can be faulty. Focus groups can’t factor in our desire to be surprised. Ask a focus group if they want to read a mystery about a bisexual girl computer
hacker set in Sweden, and Stieg Larsson’s books would never be published. Ask a focus group if they want to see a TV show about a high school glee club. Sports highlight producers
may be similarly underestimating the audience. By failing to respond to cultural shifts and narrowing their coverage, they risk boring us. Market forces are one thing; poor editorial choices based in stubborn entrenchment is another. Their only obligation is to seek to expand the sports audience, not contract it by deprivation.
jenkinss@washpost.com
game.” Long regarded as a dou- bles specialist, Stosur cracked the top 10 for the first time last month. She’s now 6-19 against top-five opponents — and 2-0 this week. Her 20-2 record this year on clay is the best on the women’s tour. The first semifinal was over in 69 minutes, and the ending came as a surprise. Schiavone said she was unaware of any injury, and Dementieva
didn’t seek treat-
ment from a trainer during the set.
“I had seen trainer for so many hours before the match,” Demen- tieva said. “I don’t think they could do something else that could really help me at that point.” She said she likely would have retired even if she had won the first set. “It is disappointing to get in- jured and not use this chance to get further,” she said. “But what can I do? I cannot change any- thing.” She said she might be forced to skip Wimbledon. Schiavone is projected to crack the top 10 for the first time next week. She’s the first Italian to reach a Grand Slam final since Adriano Panatta won the 1976 Roland Garros men’s title.
philadelphia — On Jan. 1, 2008, Ted Leonsis watched at home on television as the Buffa- lo Sabres got set to host the Pittsburgh Penguins in the in- augural Winter Classic. Snow was falling on the boisterous crowd that had packed Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. Be- fore the puck had even dropped, the owner de- cided he had to get his Washington Capitals into the NHL’s outdoor showcase. “I started e-mailing the commissioner five minutes before the game started and throughout the game,” Leonsis recalled Thurs- day, “because I thought it was best thing I had seen the NHL do as a new event. It was perfect. I said to Gary Bettman, ‘Whatever we need to do, we want to play in that game.’” After three years of behind- the-scenes lobbying from their owner, the Capitals are set to play outdoors, not once, but twice, in coming years. Alex Ovechkin and his teammates will make their Winter Classic debut on New Year’s Day against the Penguins at Pitts- burgh’s Heinz Field, and then will return in either 2013 or 2014 against a yet-to-be-deter- mined opponent. That game is expected to be played at a Washington- or Baltimore-area sports venue. Leonsis said he expects the NHL to evaluate Nationals Park, FedEx Field as well as M&T Bank Stadium and Cam- den Yards in Baltimore as po- tential host venues. “We’ve looked at the sites, we
just haven’t figured out which one we want to use yet,” Bett- man said. “We’re going to have to decide if we want to be in a football stadium or a baseball stadium.” It’s too early to call any of the arenas a leading candidate to host the game, Leonsis said, but the Capitals owner conceded that he would prefer for the game to be contested in the Washington area rather than Baltimore. “It’s not my call,” Leonsis
said. “It’s a league and NBC en- deavor.”
Another advocate for a D.C. venue is Nationals President Stan Kasten, who confirmed his team is prepared to make a hard charge to put on the Win- ter Classic. That aggressive bid will be led by Mark Lerner, a minority owner of the Capitals whose family owns the Nation- als. Kasten said the Nationals have already made a detailed presentation to the NHL, com- plete with schematics showing where the rink would be placed. Kasten also said officials from the league paid Nationals Park a visit earlier this year when Washington was being consid- ered for the 2011 game. “Let’s face it, Nationals Park is the premier venue in the most important city in the world,” Kasten said. “I can’t imagine it being anywhere but
Leonsis lobbied NHL for years to get
Nationals Park.” Asked if Lerner’s connection to both teams could facilitate a deal, Bettman said, “It certainly doesn’t hurt.” While two games in the Win-
Owner Ted Leonsis didn’t rest until the Caps were in the Classic.
ter Classic’s four-year history have been held at baseball sta- diums (Wrigley Field and Fen- way Park), the NHL prefers football stadiums because they typically can accommodate more fans and boast better sightlines. Nationals Park, for example, seats about 42,000 fans for baseball while FedEx Field can accommodate nearly 92,000 for Redskins games. Redskins spokesman Zack Bolno said the Red- skins have had prelimi- nary discussions with the NHL about hosting an outdoor game. “We feel that FedEx Field would be a great venue to host the Winter Clas- sic,” Bolno said. The only venue that has been ruled out so far is the National Mall, Leonsis said. While the monuments would of-
fer a picturesque backdrop, the logistics of erecting stands and a rink are not feasible. “We need locker rooms,”
Leonsis said. “We need electric- ity. We need suites. It’s a regular season game and points are at stake.” The National Mall could be used to showcase “hockey- themed” support events that will accompany the game, Leonsis said.
When the Capitals were
edged out by the Philadelphia Flyers for this year’s outdoor game in Boston, Leonsis was disappointed but undeterred. “I redoubled my efforts,” he said. In January the league tenta- tively decided to pit the game’s two biggest stars — Ovechkin and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby — in their marquee regular sea- son event. Just one catch: The Capitals had to travel to Pitts- burgh because, in part, NHL of- ficials did not want to make the Penguins play on the road for a second time. “I had empathy for that,” Leonsis said. General Manager George
McPhee said the Capitals ac- cepted the invitation to Heinz Field with the understanding that Washington would be awarded a game in the near fu- ture. “That was part of our dis-
cussions,” McPhee said, “that if we’re going to go to [Pitts- burgh] let’s make sure we have one in Washington.” The work that goes into plan- ning Washington’s outdoor game won’t begin in earnest for several months, if not longer. After a site has been deter- mined, the league will finalize the Capitals’ opponent. Former Patrick Division rivals such as the Flyers or New York Rangers would make the most sense, but with at least two Winter Clas- sics to be contested before the game comes to Washington, it’s not a priority for the league and discussions are not scheduled. “Again, all the league has
committed to us is that we’re playing in Pittsburgh this year against Pittsburgh, and in the next two or three years they’ll produce a game in Washing- ton,” Leonsis said before adding after a pause, “I think we’ll be fantastic hosts.”
elbashirt@washpost.com
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