Furious tennis followers have lashed out at Channel Nine after the community snubbed 21-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic on night time two of the Australian Open.
The Serbian ace is the headline act within the high half of the Men’s draw, following the last-minute withdrawal of controversial native star Nick Kyrgios, however he discovered himself ousted from air time to 2 unseeded Australians.
One fan posted Djokovic’s Arena entrance to Twitter as he obtained a standing ovation stating, “I am sharing here because it’s not being televised, and you won’t see it otherwise”.
Some followers labelled the choice a “sick joke”, and others criticised the broadcaster for utilizing the encounter to hype their protection with out really displaying the match.
The second day of the Open was thrown into chaos by excessive and weird Melbourne climate that noticed play suspended on outdoors courts throughout the afternoon for excessive warmth, just for play to once more be halted after the resumption by rain.
Thanasi Kokkinakis’ first-round encounter was broadcast on the free-to-air channels till it was suspended, with the Aussie simply two video games away from a straight units flogging of Italian Fabio Fognini.
Alex De Minaur’s cruisy opening recreation was additionally proven earlier than a five-set epic between native Alexei Popyrin and Taiwan’s Chun-Hsin ‘Jason’ Tseng went into the late hours.
Popyrin got here out on high to ship one other Aussie by way of.
But followers who needed to view Djokovic’s straight-sets demolition of Spaniard Roberto Carballés Baena needed to hunt it down on Channel Nine’s streaming platform 9Now till late within the match, when it was ultimately switched to GEM.
It is one other unusual name by the broadcaster, with scores dropping by 28 per cent on this time final 12 months, which comes after Channel Seven’s Home and Away proved extra in style than the Open’s opening night time.
