It has been a long weekend for the U.S. Open production team of coordinating producer Bob Mansbach and his team of producers David Winner and Ken Mack as well as directors Bob Fishman and Jim Cornell. They have done a great job handling adverse conditions.
Last night they were spot on with their coverage of the Serna Williams meltdown on match point in her semi finals match with Kim Clijsters.
With Williams serving at 5-6, 15-30 in the second set, she faulted on her first serve. On the second serve, a line judge called a foot fault, making it a double-fault. That made the score 15-40, putting Clijsters one point from victory.
Williams went over and shouted at the line judge, who walked over and reported it to the chair umpire. That led to the chair umpire awarding a penalty point to Clijsters, ending the match.
Williams already had been given a code violation warning when she broke her racket after losing the first set.
The broadcast team of Dick Enberg, Mary Carillo and John McEnroe were all over the situation and was able to explain to the viewers exactly what happened, how it happened and why it happened. Also Mary Joe Fernandez was great in her role of on court reporter speaking to a stunned Clijsters as well as to the USTA officials who made the call that resulted in Williams getting the penalty on match point.
Despite being on the air for over 12 hours the CBS production team had Williams outburst at the line judge covered and even did a quick audio edit so that it was clear to the viewers that profanity was used and that the match point penalty was justified.
Also CBS stuck with the coverage and aired the post match press conference where Williams explained her action and apologized for the outburst.
CBS talent and production teams were clearly on their game and that is not easy after the very long day they had out at the wet Billy Jean King USTA Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows.
Today at 4:15pm CBS will air the men’s semi finals match between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Then Monday the network will air the Men’s Finals at 4pm.
The NFL on CBS starts today with a full slate of openers and here is today’s game broadcaster assignments.
The Jets will be in Houston and Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will handle the action.
Miami at Atlanta will be Greg Gumble and Dan Dierdorf has the call.
Kansas City at Baltimore will have Ian Eagle and Rich Gannon
Denver opens at Cincinnati and the team of Gus Johnson and Dan Fouts will handle the broadcast.
Jacksonville travels to Indianapolis to face the Colts and Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots will be on hand to handle the chores.
Video of the Williams meltdown from You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWoVY0-WHc
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