Nobody Does Tennis Like FSN...

...And thank God for that.

Sorry for the lack of coverage this week on what seems to be a pretty excellent tournament.  I've caught some of the action in streams, including a very sloppy win for Kim Clijsters over Justine Henin in a semifinal which neither player seemed especially eager to win at the end. 

FSN needs to stop showing tennis.  They just need to stop.  ESPN used to do a great job with this event, and Tennis Channel has also done well with the parts of it that it has been able to air.  But FSN's tennis coverage, on the rare occasion it makes it to the Washington DC area, is always terrible.  They tape delay it frivolously, preempt it for anything, and have the lowest production values of any network.

I did, however, get to see all of Tomas Berdych's upset of Roger Federer, which was shown on Tennis Channel.  Neither played exceptionally from wire to wire, but the cojones that Berdych showed in the last three points of the match, to go for broke when it mattered much, really impressed me.  When I interviewed him last year, Berdych seemed to think that once he lost any momentum against Federer, all hope was lost.  With that revelation fresh in my mind, I expected Berdych to wilt after losing the first set.  But he hung tough, and notched one of his biggest wins in the last several years.  He pulled off another upset against Fernando Verdasco in the quarters, and I'm hoping he can make it three in a row against Robin Soderling tonight in the semifinals.