Idle thoughts while watching the Australian Open for the past 10 days

1) Martina Navratilova is — by far — the best TV tennis analyst in the world. Bitingly incisive, witheringly direct, concise, funny, sarcastic, instructive, knowledgable — what more is there? Her deep knowledge of the game takes you into the psyche of the players and lets even a complete novice like me get a sense of what the inner game — not just what's visible on the court — is about.

2) I've been struck by how much better the broadcast looks when the little box with the players' names and running score isn't onscreen. In what seems more or less a random occurrence, about half the time the box isn't there. Much better that way. I'd make it so the box only appeared between points, not when play was happening. In fact, it would be a wonderful experiment to have one of the networks that does pro and college football try this. As it is, the box for football — showing the quarter, time remaining, score, down and yards to go, available timeouts and who's got the ball — takes up almost 25% of the screen and really detracts from the action on the field.

3) Another thing that seems new to me on this series of tennis broadcasts is the absolutely still main camera that shows the majority of the full-court action from behind one end line. Usually that camera moves a little from side to side, but the rock-steady position seems to make watching the match that much more absorbing, as if you're sitting there in the stands as opposed to staring at a screen.