For Tracy Austin, Martina Navratilova’s farewell appearance in the Wimbledon women’s singles final Saturday will be “a special time for women’s tennis.”
Austin, the former two-time U.S. Open winner who’s working NBC’s telecasts as an analyst, said Thursday the grass courts-and the upset of top-seeded Steffi Graf in the first round-worked in Navratilova’s favor.
“She’s playing well,” said Austin. “She wasn’t playing this well the first six months of the year. She was struggling. She had some early-round losses. But her game is perfectly suited for grass, and she feels very comfortable at Wimbledon. Any time you’ve won a tournament nine times, you feel very comfortable with the surroundings. She feels at home here.”
And when Graf was eliminated by Lori McNeil, “it opened up the draw,” said Austin. “Look at the quarterfinalists-six of the eight were serve-and-vollyers. Gigi Fernandez was ranked No. 99 in the world, and she got to the semifinals. And that’s because it’s grass.”
Austin said Saturday’s final will be “happy because, win or lose, it’s a great accomplishment for Martina. And it’s also sad because this will be the last time we’ll see her playing on Centre Court. She’s been Wimbledon.”
More tennis: John McEnroe, another NBC analyst, took on Boris Becker during Wednesday’s men’s quarterfinals. “Boris is not as confident as he was in years past,” said McEnroe of the three-time Wimbledon champ’s questionable behavior. “He’s not as good a player, so he feels like he needs to do more.”
Harry situation: WGN Radio and TV officials aren’t rushing Harry Caray back into the Cubs’ broadcast booth. “We’re encouraging Harry to take as much time as he needs,” said Tribune Broadcasting vice president Wayne Vriesman on Thursday. “We’re reserving judgment on (his future) until we know his physical condition and his desires.”
For the immediate future, Wayne Larrivee will continue to fill in on radio and TV. But Larrivee, who was brought back from vacation when Caray suffered his injury, has to return to football in August.
“We’ve had some preliminary discussions about next year,” said Vriesman. “The 50th year (in broadcasting) was extremely important to Harry. We bowed to his desires to make this year the best we could for him. Until this happened, it was sailing along nicely. We’ll discuss next year once we get out of our current situation.”
Vriesman denied a report Brent Musburger had been approached as a possible Caray replacement either this year or next. “We had discussions with Brent when Harry had his stroke,” Vriesman said. “But nothing since then.”
More Caray: Caray was scheduled to begin a 90-second daily radio sports feature for Chicago-based Major Networks immediately following the All-Star Game. Those plans, naturally, also have been put on hold. When the series starts, WGN-AM will be the local outlet.
World Cup fever: ABC had a 6.8 rating with an 18 share for last Sunday’s U.S.-Romania soccer match, making it the highest-rated soccer telecast in the U.S. The previous record was a 6.6 rating with a 22 share for Italy’s victory over West Germany in the 1982 World Cup final, also on ABC. A national Nielsen rating point represents 942,000 TV households. Shares are a percentage of sets in use.
The network’s four first-round games averaged a 4.8/15, above what Alan Rothenberg, chairman of the U.S. World Cup organizers, said was the network’s prediction of a rating between 4.0 and 4.5. And ABC has seven more telecasts to go, including Monday’s U.S.-Brazil second-round matchup.
Elsewhere, ESPN has averaged a 2.1 rating for its first 18 live cablecasts, 11 of which have aired on weekday afternoons. And Spanish-language Univision network is averaging a 12.3 rating for its live telecasts through Wednesday. Each rating point equals 65,200 Hispanic households.
Locally, last Sunday’s soccer telecast had a 7.0 rating with a 17 share on WLS-Ch. 7, which nearly won the afternoon. Only the Cubs-Cardinals game on WGN-Ch. 9 did better-7.4/20. The Greater Hartford Open on WBBM-Ch. 2 had a 4.3/10, while Wimbledon tennis highlights on WMAQ-Ch. 5 had a 2.2/6. A local Nielsen rating point represents 31,000 TV households.
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News biz: Kudos to WMVP-AM reporter Bruce Levine for breaking the Dwight Gooden suspension story this week, beating even Gooden’s own crazed New York media. Too bad David Kaplan’s tip on the Scottie Pippen “trade” never was realized.
Programming notes: Co-host Willow Bay follows former CVS star Juwan Howard through Wednesday’s NBA draft for a feature on “NBA Inside Stuff” at 1 p.m. Saturday on WMAQ-Ch. 5. . . . Who better than whimsical White Sox announcer Tom Paciorek to host “Sports Night at the Improv-Chicago,” featuring comics Jim McHugh, Chuck Booms and Scott LaRose, at 10:30 p.m. Friday on ESPN2. The show is produced by Chicagoan Bart Fox, who says he hopes it’s the first of many such programs for the cable network. . . . As a 4th of July present, SportsChannel repeats the final Blackhawks and Bulls games at the Stadium, starting at 7 p.m. Monday.