Tennis Channel to re-air Top 100 countdown
April 2, 2012
LOS ANGELES — Tennis Channel will air two encore showings of its debate-generating countdown series 100 Greatest of all Time Presented by Ally Bank Saturday, April 7. The five-episode special, which ranked the 100 best tennis players of all time, male or female, will run in its entirety from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. ET and again from 7 p.m.-midnight.
Originally airing March 19-23, 100 Greatest of all Time counted down the best men and women tennis players across all eras, gradually working from 100 to No. 1, the best player ever – revealed to be current Swiss star Roger Federer. Tennis Channel used archival footage and a wide variety of interviews to support rankings that were determined by an international committee of players, journalists, coaches, historians and industry representatives from six continents and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
The special series generated passionate commentary from viewers, sports fans, media members, bloggers, tennis players and others who both agreed and disagreed with the final rankings. In addition to increased activity on the network’s Web site (www.tennischannel.com/goat) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/tennischannel), 100 Greatest of all Time led to Twitter posts from Hall of Famers Billie Jean King (@BillieJKing), Jimmy Connors (@JimmyConnors) and Chris Evert (@ChrissieEvert), all of whom were ranked highly in the series.
Each episode of the week-long 100 Greatest of all Time countdown was hosted by a different all-time great from a sport other than tennis. These were golf’s Jack Nicklaus (No. 100-71), football’s Jerry Rice (70-41), track and field’s Carl Lewis (40-21), basketball’s Lisa Leslie (20-11) and hockey’s Wayne Gretzky (10-1). Prior to announcing Federer as the greatest tennis player of all time, Gretzky unveiled the rest of the top 10 which featured, from 10 to two: Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Margaret Court, Bjorn Borg, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Rod Laver.
Tennis Channel (tennischannel.com) is the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. A hybrid of programming, the network is home to every aspect of the wide-ranging, worldwide tennis community. It also has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with telecast rights to the US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open), Australian Open, Olympus US Open Series, ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events, top-tier WTA competitions, Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and Hyundai Hopman Cup. Tennis Channel is carried by nine of the top 10 video providers.