Red Button commentary on Sky

I encourage everyone with access to use the red button even when the match is being screened on normal Sky, simply because the commentary is absolutely streets ahead.

Firstly, we don't get anywhere near as much fanboy stuff, even when an American is playing. Secondly they try to understand what's happening in the match rather than delivering platitudes.

A case in point was the Nadal/Nalbandian match. I had Cowan & Petchey on and I couldn't understand why they were raving about Rafas play when I thought it was quite fragile. Every won point prompted a tribute statement, every lost one was put down to "one for the collectors album" or the wind, or some such thing, and nothing much was said about Daves frequent acts of self-destruction. So I put the red button on and they talked about how he had been very patchy and sometimes really quite sloppy. They gave credit where due and I kind of recognised the words as matching what I was watching on the TV.

Barry Cowan really is the ultimate tennis idiot on TV, perhaps finally pushing Simon Reed off the top spot, while Petchey is just there to do fanboy one-liners. These American guys and girls are far better. Give them a try. I certainly will, and most especially on Federer where I stand a better chance of getting a frank assessment of his play rather than the urgent fanboy worship from the favourite-chasers.

Anyone else on Virgin Media? I press the red button, get 6 matches to choose from, then it freezes and I can't choose any of them.

Aye, it drives me crackers. Nadal overhits a couple of shots and you get inane drivel like "the last time that happened was in 2005!", or "that's a shot he'd make 999 times out of 1000!". They also tend to love whoever is in the ascendancy when two of the top guys meet. The tennis-watching experience certainly isn't enriched by the Cowan-Petchey dream team.