ITV Lands French Open Tennis Rights

LONDON: ITV has secured the free-to-air broadcast rights for the French Open tennis tournament, which were previously held by the BBC.

ITV’s first-ever live coverage of the tournament will be broadcast starting in 2012 under a three-year deal. ITV1 will air the men’s and women’s finals from Paris’s Roland Garros stadium, along with live coverage of two other matches during the two-week tournament. The deal also sees the digital channel ITV4 and ITV.com coverage about six hours of each day’s play, along with providing highlights.

ITV’s controller of sport, Niall Sloane, said: "It’s the first time that a grand slam has been shown live on ITV and with around six hours of coverage over each day of the tournament we’ll be offering viewers more free-to-air coverage of the tournament than ever before."

The BBC did, however, bag the rights to keep Wimbledon coverage until at least 2017.