Beeb beaming after well planned coup de grass

WE WERE not expecting a huge story in the opening week of Wimbledon but we got one. And the BBC did their utmost to bring the shock news to the nation. It began with Des Lynam interrupting his prepared spiel in his Wimbledon eyrie, and rolled on through all the main bulletins on BBC1. It was also headline news on Ceefax - yes, the BBC had actually retained some broadcasting rights to a sport by winning a new five-year contract for Wimbledon.

Forget Martina Hingis becoming un-hinged, forget British crowds cheering for Boris Becker against a British player. This was the plucky story of a down-trodden broadcast organisation that had dropped out of the "seedings" coming out of nowhere to claim a victory against the bigger hitters.

Bizarrely, on all the bulletins, different reporters used the same phrase - "this is good news for the BBC, and good news for the viewer". Apparently scripted in the Slobodan Milosevic news-management centre, this was an interesting phrasing of priorities. But having won for once, the BBC were determined to let us know about it.

It was no surprise then to see corporate top-spin also place Wimbledon in other BBC programmes. A "best of" A Question of Sport (BBC1) was framed by year-old footage of McCoist, Parrott and Barker pratting around in SW19. A second special On Side (BBC1) - the first had been deployed to plug the Cricket World Cup final - duly plugged Wimbledon by having Martina Navratilova on John Inverdale's designer sofa. Most facetiously, Face Value (BBC1) took an open-topped bus to the tournament to quiz the queue about its awareness of tennis brands and sponsors' logos, thereby getting in a hefty promo for all. For the BBC, Wimbledon was plainly the last redoubt. This is not just for its ratings but because the television audience for Wimbledon has a vociferous core of suburban, middle-class viewers, who would storm Television Centre if the tournament was lost to another broadcaster.

So now that Wimbledon is safe in their hands, how does the BBC's coverage measure up? Given its vast sprawl it is inevitable that there are highs and lows, the latter being mostly provided by reporter Gary Richardson's attempts to put his own inane words into his interviewees' mouths. "You must be getting fed up having microphones pushed in your face," he said to Jelena Dokic the day after her epic victory, pushing a microphone into her face.

Up top, Des Lynam's lounge lizard demeanour is perfect for hosting the languid afternoon sessions. Were he not the world's pre-eminent sports anchorman, you could imagine him getting busy in the Pimm's tent with the ladies. But thanks to the decent weather, Des has been able to sleepwalk through the first week. No rain bulletins, no sudden links to old footage, and no waffling interviews to fill in time.

His one tricky moment coincided with Tuesday's on-court drama. Setting up champion Jana Novotna's first match, Des found himself wrestling with her opponent's name - Shi-Ting Wang. "Shy [long pause] Ting" was his attempt, although the commentator tactfully preferred "She-Ting" before, to great relief, news came through that Miss Wang preferred to be known as "Stephanie".

But dwelling on Novotna's match meant that the transmission was very late in cutting away to Hingis against Dokic with the 16-year-old Australian already 5-2 up on the No 1 seed. Yet you didn't need tabloid instincts to sense that Hingis- Dokic was always likely to be the bigger story. Hingis had behaved atrociously in France. Equally, with Dokic's Serbian father having thrown a wobbler at a tournament in Birmingham, there was enough baggage here to put the handlers at Heathrow on over-time.

An equally dubious editorial line has seen the 17th seed Anna Kournikova covered in inverse proportion to her achievements. Yes, we know that she's not ugly, but there are better, higher-ranked women players who've hardly been glimpsed. Even the photograph that accompanies her slim career statistics verges on the prurient. While other women are depicted in action, Kournikova is shown leaning forward with a plunging cleavage, more centrefold than Centre Court.

And then of course there is Tim, "the most famous face in Britain" according to a smarmy Barry Davies. The BBC's scarcely concealed hope is that this could be "Tim's Year", as John Barrett asked of Pete Sampras. And this just after wondering if the five-times champion was worried about his perceived "lack of charisma". You feared that Barrett might soon be lacking his front teeth, but Sampras remained as polite as ever.

Meanwhile, Henman's credentials to succeed the immaculate Yank were undermined by a "Tim Nice-but-Dim" contribution to the equal prize-money debate, suggesting that the No 1 Brit might be a few strawberries short of a punnet. Henman is closing in on the quarter-finals, yelled on by the Union-jacked "Come-on-Tims!" The Beeb is right with him, but "Stephanie-ing" itself about his early exit.

Greg Wood is on holiday