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Friday's Notebook Tennis Australia wins internet battle
Posted: Friday January 28, 2000 01:37 PM
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Australia's tennis federation has won the first round in a contest with tour operators using the Australian Open name to promote their Internet sites. Tennis Australia was granted a preliminary injunction against two on-line tennis tour operators in new anti-cybersquatting legislation in the United States. On-line tour operators Championship Tennis Tours Inc and Sportwave Inc used domain names australianopen.com and ausopen.com and other similar addresses to attract surfers to their sites. Their Web sites will be deactivated Feb. 15 pending the outcome of the full trial, which begins Sept. 13. In the injunction hearing, Tennis Australia argued people looking for information about the Australian Open were confused by the defendants' sites, and estimated up to 60 million site hits were lost to the rogue sites during last year's tournament. It also argued the defendants were improperly using the Tennis Australia trademark. Top ratingsAustralia's Channel 7 drew a massive audience of 3,175,000 viewers for its live and exclusive television coverage of Andre Agassi's epic five-set win over Pete Sampras. Harold Anderson, the network's sports director, said he was delighted with the ratings Thursday evening as 53.6 percent of the prime time viewing audience tuned into the semifinal broadcast at some stage. "We applaud Andre and Pete for playing such a memorable match," he said. Some 1.15 million people in Melbourne -- home of the Australian Open -- and 956,000 in Sydney watched the center court match, while the broadcast also topped the audience share in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Champion showdownYevgeny Kafelnikov is content to face Andre Agassi, rather than Pete Sampras, in Sunday's final. The Russian No. 2 seed said his game parallels that of Agassi, and neither player can dominate the other. "So every time we go, we have a tough battle. So it's a matter of a few points," he said Friday. "Pete, he can dominate. If his serve is working, you have got no shot at beating him. But with Andre, at least you have a chance." Kafelnikov said he didn't think Agassi's thrilling five-set victory over Pete Sampras on Friday night would diminish the energy of the No. 1 seed. "I know his ego. He wants to win every match that he is playing, so it would be no exception on Sunday," he said.
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