(June 25, 2018)

For First Time, All of Wimbledon Available – and Only from ESPN;Fortnight Begins July 2

Starting today and through Thursday, June 28, all four days of qualifying will stream live exclusively on ESPN+, the new direct-to-consumer subscription service available within the ESPN App.  All-day action starts at 6 a.m. ET from one of the grass courts at the Bank of England Sports Centre in Roehampton, not far from Wimbledon and the All England Lawn Tennis Club.  This is the first professional tennis action on ESPN+.

Highlights:  All Day, Daily Coverage across TV, ESPN3 and ESPN+

• The first five weekdays, ESPN begins at 7 a.m. ET for daylong coverage (scheduled to end at 4:30 p.m. except 4 p.m. on Wednesday).  The action gets started live at 6:30 a.m. streaming on ESPN3 and ESPN+.
• The ESPN App will be the all-in-one streaming home for Wimbledon, with ESPN and ESPN2 telecasts and the matches streaming on ESPN3 and ESPN+. Combined, the app will stream more than 500 matches totaling 1,500 hours from all 18 courts (Centre, Courts 1-12, 14-18.), plus AELTC’s daily The Wimbledon Channel and two all-day feeds with press conferences from the media centre at the All England Club. Offering will include coverage in Spanish every day.  Matches will also be available on demand afterwards.
• On Saturday, July 7, ESPN again begins at 7 a.m., but with the one-hour Breakfast at Wimbledon presented by Panera Bread before another day full of action.
• On the “middle Sunday,” July 8 – Wimbledon’s traditional day of rest – ABC will broadcast a three-hour review of the first week at 3 p.m.  In addition, ABC will present encore presentations of the singles championships on the day they take place, July 14 and 15, at 3 p.m.
• “Cross Court Coverage” returns the first three days of the second week, with ESPN starting at 8 a.m. and focused on Centre Court all day while fans will enjoy a “grounds pass” with matches from No.1 Court and elsewhere on ESPN2 beginning at 7 a.m. on Monday, July 9, and at 8 a.m. on July 10 and 11.
• From Thursday, July 12, through the Championships, all the action is on ESPN, beginning each day with Breakfast at Wimbledon presented by Panera Bread (7 a.m. on July 12-13 leading into the semifinals, 8 a.m. on July 14-15, previewing the Championships).
• Saturday, July 14, will feature the Ladies’ Singles Championship along with the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Doubles Championship on ESPN with the Gentlemen’s Championship and Mixed Doubles Championship on Sunday.  All other division championships will be available on ESPN+ within the ESPN App.
• As in the past, ESPN3 will offer a second screen experience for the semifinals and Championships.

MORE TV & DIGITAL MEDIA, AT HOME AND ABROAD

ESPN.com will have previews, reviews, the latest news and videos and more:

• Courtcast: A multi-tool application with live events via ESPN’s syndicated streaming player, all-court scoring, match stats, poll questions, rolling Twitter feeds and scrolling bottom line
• Daily preview of the next day’s biggest matches.
• Social buzz: What’s happening around the grounds our fans need to know about.
• Global scene: A daily look at the storylines that are resonating in all of our regions.
• com will be on site, providing features and profiles.

ESPNDeportes.com will provide live scores and draws, in depth news and coverage of Latin American players, columns, blogs, live chats, video, highlights and news, including Wimbledon that will recap the day’s play. The site will also feature Slam Central, a special index page dedicated to all four Grand Slams.

For the 11th year, ESPN will provide multi-screen coverage with commentary of five matches in addition to ESPN or ESPN2 network program through the second Monday of the Championships, on DirecTV.  Fans will also receive interviews, features, press conferences and studio analysis from the All England Club.  Sam Gore will host, joined in the studio by Rennae Stubbs, Mardy Fish and Chris Bowers.  Commentators for outer court matches will be provided by the BBC.  In addition to the video offerings, DirecTV viewers can access results, schedules, draws and other interactive features through the “Red Button” application on their remote. In total, ESPN will provide more than 350 hours of coverage through this unique application.

ESPN Classic is presenting a seven-day (plus one hour = 169 hours), non-stop marathon of memorable Wimbledon matches that started today, Monday, June 25, at 5 a.m.  The marathon concludes Monday, July 2 at 6 a.m., one hour before the 2018 Championships commence.  The matches are primarily championships and go back as far as the 1977 Gentlemen’s Championship (Bjorn Borg vs. Jimmy Connors).

In the late hours of Saturday, June 30, into Sunday, July 1, ESPN2 will look back at one of the most memorable matches in tennis history, the 2010 first-round duel of attrition between American John Isner and Nicholas Mahut.  Played over three days, the match lasted 11 hours and five with a final score of 6–4, 3–6, 6–7^(7–9), 7–6^(7–3), 70–68, the longest tennis match in history measured both by time and number of games. The final set alone was longer than the previous longest match.  The 8.5-hour telecast will begin late Saturday at midnight (9 p.m. PT).

ESPN International, the home of tennis’ Grand Slam events in Latin America and the Caribbean, will provide live Wimbledon coverage to more than 44 countries and 60 million homes via its television and digital platforms throughout the region.  ESPN’s Spanish language pan-regional networks will offer more than 140 hours of live tennis, focused on the top-ranked players in the world, while the regional networks will focus on players of local interest. In addition to the live coverage, ESPN will offer two daily encore presentations featuring the best matches of the day. ESPN’s Spanish-language commentator team will include tennis experts Luis Alfredo Alvarez and Eduardo Varela calling matches with analysts Javier Frana and Jose Luis Clerc, along with reporter Nicolas Pereira.  ESPN’s Caribbean networks will provide simulcast coverage and will broadcast over 120-hours of live Wimbledon content.

ESPN Play – ESPN International’s Spanish- and English-language broadband service in Latin America and the Caribbean – will offer 1,400-hours of live coverage from up to 15 courts simultaneously, covering every point from every camera court; ESPN Play will also offer qualifying matches for the first time, June 25-28, as well as the Wimbledon Surround three-screen service for the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Semifinals and Championships.

ESPN and Tennis

Tennis has been part of ESPN since its first week on the air, providing numerous memorable moments from around the world, but it has never been as important as today, with the unprecedented position of presenting three of the sport’s Major events from start to finish (Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open, with exclusivity at the latter two).

ESPN & WIMBLEDON 2018