Tennis doesn't need David Attenboroughs

There are a lot of things that bother me about tennis commentating a lot of the times (aside from those precious few exemptions), but I won't list them all. After all it is easy to sit on the sofa and tell people how much they suck at their job. I'll spare that energy for the actual tennis.

Today I don't want to rant about commentators harping on about their former careers, or their obvious drooling over or attacking of some players, today I want to address the one thing that bothers me most about tennis commentating: narrating.

I am not watching a nature film where I need David Attenborugh telling me that what the birds are doing is actually flirting, neither is it such a high pace sport that I can't see what is going on. It is tennis, I can see when a player hits the umpteenth double fault and considering I am the proud owner of a seemingly functioning brain (shush, that joke is too easy) I know that that is not helpful for a player to do. What I would like to see, or actually hear, more in tennis commentating is actual commentary. And no, I don't mean 'she/he sucks for double faulting', that's what we have twitter for. Give me some insight, is a player dropping their shoulder too much during the toss? Is their service motion abbreviated? Could they change their grip. 

A part of this commentating would also be the commentators knowing the rules. Yesterday one of my British Eurosport commentators was sure Falla was footfaulting, because his knee (his KNEE) crossed the centre line during his service motion. Don't go about guessing, read the rulebooks. Of course there are fuzzy implementations, especially with hawk-eye and hindrance rules (ahem), but don't get it so obviously wrong.

A good example of two sports I enjoy watching in part thanks to their commentating are international rugby on the BBC (and I do mean the actual commentating, not the post game analysis) and speedskating on the NOS. It isn't always perfect, and sometimes there is mindless babble, but most of it is explaining why things are happening as they happen. And yes, the occassional 'that is SNESATIONAL' is more than welcome. If a 10 kilometer skating race can be made riveting by explaining why someone is skating so well and how that compares to skating less (that's 13 minutes of 400m laps, it's rarely edge of your seat stuff all the way), and simply watching a rugby match can teach you the (often complicated) rules, without turning into a lesson, surely tennis commentators can bring some insight during matches.

Lindsay Davenport and Jason&Robbie are great examples of commentators who bring that in tennis, they add to the tennis viewing experience. May more commentators take after them in 2014!