Have you had your fill of the very best streaming services and their scripted (and unscripted content)? Is live sports action calling out to you as we head into winter?
If you’re a tennis fan, then you might like to check out Sky’s dedicated tennis channel, which launched earlier this year. In the same vein as Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports Cricket, you can catch major tournaments and sporting drama to rival Challengers (albeit without the relentless, synth-heavy soundtrack) on Sky Sports Tennis.
The year’s Grand Slams may be over, and a true tennis great in Rafael Nadal is about to wave farewell to the sport with a final professional appearance at the Davis Cup. However, there’s still plenty to play for, as the world’s top players take part in the season-ending ATP and WTA Finals.
Here’s what you need to know about what (and who) you can find on the channel, along with how to subscribe.
Sky Sports Tennis channel: An introduction
Sky Sports Tennis launched in February 2024 as the broadcaster’s new dedicated channel for all things tennis. It plans to broadcast over 80 tournaments and over 4,000 matches per year.
Sky has the rights to the prestigious US Open grand slam and will also broadcast regular action from the top tiers of men’s and women’s tennis, including the ATP and WTA finals.
The ATP Masters 1000 series (including major tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome and Cincinnati) also features on Sky.
Sky TV customers with a Sky Sports subscription can find Sky Sports Tennis on channel 407 or via the interface on their Sky Glass TV or Sky Stream box.
Customers on the Sky-operated streaming service NOW who hold day Sports Membership can access live matches on Sky Sports Tennis, Sky Sports Arena and Sky Sports Mix. Monthly Sports Membership customers will also have access to further coverage via Bonus Streams.
Virgin Media customers can access Sky Sports Tennis on channel 520 (HD) or 537 (SD), while EE TV customers can watch on channel 445 (HD) or channel 425 (SD).
Sky Sports Tennis coverage schedule: What’s coming up in November 2024?
With the last grand slam of the year complete, and Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka crowned this year’s US Open men’s and women’s singles champions respectively, eyes now turn to the ATP and WTA finals.
With just eight slots for individual players and eight for doubles teams available at each end-of-season tournament, the tennis elite will be looking to secure a top 7 ranking.
The women’s WTA singles ranking is here, and we now know the lineup for the two round-robin groups at the finals in Riyadh. Aryna Sabalenka, Jasmine Paolini, Elena Rybakina, Zheng Qinwen are in one group, with Iga Świątek, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Barbora Krejčíková in the other.
Each player takes part in one match against the others in her group, with the top two in each group going forward to the semi-finals.
You can see the men’s ATP singles ranking here – Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz have already qualified for the finals in Turin, with three slots still to be decided.
The final place at both the ATP and WTA finals tournaments is reserved for the highest-ranking Grand Slam winner (or eighth place in the ranking table if there are no Grand Slam winners in positions 8 to 20). Therefore, the tournaments taking place over the next few weeks are really important to the players who haven’t yet qualified.
Where you see a number included in a tournament’s name, it indicates the number of ATP or WTA ranking points its champion will receive.
Related: Sky Cinema’s new movie premieres in September 2024
Sky Sports Tennis schedule – November
The pre-finals tournaments wrap up with action from the ATP tournament in Paris (without Jannik Sinner, who is unwell) and two WTA tournaments in Hong Kong and Jiujiang. Coverage of these events concludes on Sunday, November 3.
Then, daily coverage of the 2024 WTA finals in Riyadh commences on Saturday, November 2 from 12.15pm on Sky Sports Tennis. The grand final is scheduled for Saturday, November 9 at 4pm.
Meanwhile, there will also be coverage from two ATP 250 tournaments in Metz and Belgrade between November 4 and 9.
Then, the 2024 ATP finals in Turin start on Monday, November 10, with the grand final taking place on Sunday, November 17 at 2pm.
Sky Sports Tennis also broadcasts late-night highlights packages and replays of recent ATP and WTA tour games throughout the month.
The main tour action winds down after the major finals, of course – but the ATP Next Gen Finals are programmed to run between Wednesday, December 18 and Sunday, December 22 if you’re looking for some pre-Christmas tennis featuring emerging stars (Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are both former Next Gen champions, and Jack Draper was a semi-finalist in 2022).
Sky Sports Tennis subscription: How to sign up
There are several ways to watch Sky Sports Tennis. The most common is by signing up for the full Sky Sports package via Sky Q, Sky Glass or Sky Stream.
You’ll need to have the entry-level Sky TV package – so that’s Sky TV for Sky Q, or Sky TV plus Netflix Standard with Ads for Sky Glass and Sky Stream – before you can sign up for any additional packages such as Sky Sports.
View the latest Sky Glass deals
The full Sky Sports package includes nine dedicated sports channels, plus Sky Sports Mix, Sky Sports Arena and Sky Sports News.
You’ll be able to watch men’s Premier League and EFL Championship football, Formula 1 and IndyCar, top-level cricket, selected Women’s Super League football matches, the German Bundesliga (featuring Harry Kane), big rugby games, Premier League Darts, plus rugby, basketball and netball.
There’s also Sky Sports+, a new linear channel complemented by live streams, which has expanded the broadcaster’s live sports coverage capabilities dramatically.
View the latest Sky Stream deals
New Sky Q, Sky Glass and Sky Stream customers can add Sky Sports to their packages for £20 per month as of October 15. That’s assuming a 24-month contract.
As of October 15, the total price for Sky Stream (including Netflix Standard with Ads) and Sky Sports over a 24-month period is therefore £46 instead of the usual £56.
Sky Glass or Sky Stream customers can instead choose a 31-day rolling contract, but that costs slightly more. At the moment, there’s an offer price of £27 per month instead of the usual £30 per month for the Sky Sports add-on.
That means a total price of £56/month (instead of £61/month) for Sky Stream (including Netflix Standard with Ads) and Sky Sports on a 31-day rolling agreement.
For existing customers looking to upgrade to Sky Sports, sign in to your Sky account or check out customer deals here.
NOW also has the option of a daily Sky Sports membership for £14.99 per day, or a monthly Sky Sports membership for £26 per month for a minimum six-month period. From month seven, this goes up to the full price of £34.99 per month.
Sky Sports Tennis commentators and presenters
Sky Sports Tennis’ presenting team is led by Gigi Salmon, with commentary from Jonathan Overend, and Tim Henman and Laura Robson as regular pundits for the channel.
Before leading the Sky Sports Tennis team, Gigi worked for talkSPORT, Chelsea TV and Radio Wimbledon. She also spent several years on BBC Radio 5 Live’s tennis team, working across major tournaments including Wimbledon.
Jonathan moved from BBC local radio to national prominence in 1997, when he joined the team at BBC Radio 5 Live to work on its sports coverage.
In addition to tennis, he worked on the station’s coverage of the Ashes cricket tournament, the Paralympic Games and the men’s football World Cup, and he spent five years anchoring its Sunday afternoon coverage of the Premier League.
In 2020, he went freelance. While his voice can still be heard on the BBC, he has also since worked for broadcasters including ITV and Times Radio.
Laura won an Olympic silver medal in the mixed doubles with Andy Murray at London 2012, and she achieved her career-high WTA ranking the following summer when she ranked among the world’s top 30 women’s singles tennis players.
She retired from competitive tennis in 2022, and in addition to her work for Sky, she was part of Eurosport’s French Open broadcast team this year.
During his playing career, Tim achieved 15 ATP titles and made the semi-finals of the French Open, US Open and Wimbledon. He also won an Olympic silver medal, at Atlanta 1996 in the men’s doubles.
Since retiring at the end of 2007, Tim has been a regular on the BBC’s coverage of Wimbledon, and like Laura, he also lent his insight to Eurosport’s coverage of the French Open this year.
Guest pundits who’ve featured on Sky Sports Tennis’ coverage so far this year have included Annabel Croft, Martina Navratilova, Anne Keothavong, Marion Bartoli and Feliciano Lopez.
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