Cbs Aces Open; Football Kickoff Flat

Tennis scored big for CBS on Sunday, while pro football got off to a fair start in its opening weekend.

While ESPN was expecting sky-high ratings for its Sunday night NFL game, CBS and Fox were largely flat or slightly down from a year ago on Sunday afternoon. ESPN had already earned its best NFL rating since 1999 with a 9.4 for Thursday night's season opener and expects to threaten that mark when its Sunday ratings are released this morning.

But U.S. Open tennis was good to CBS as the network scored a 7.9 rating/15 share in the Nielsen overnights for Sunday's men's final between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, up 44% from the 2001 final. The match ran from 4:45-8 p.m. EDT.

On Saturday, CBS finished with a mixed bag as the women's final between Venus and Serena Williams earned a 7.2/13, down 6% from last year's 7.7/14 in primetime. But the men's draw showed strength with the two semifinals earning a 3.4/9 (up 48% from 2001) and a 4.8/12 (up 41%) from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday's women's semifinals and men's doubles finals earned a 3.0/9, up 11% from a 2.7/9 a year ago.

On Sunday, both network pregame football shows showed a bit of slippage as CBS drew a 2.8/7 with its new studio team, down a notch from last year's 2.9/7 for "The NFL Today." Fox also dropped a bit, to a 4.5/11, down 4% from a 4.7/12 for its "NFL Sunday" shows.

CBS' regional coverage earned an 8.7/19 compared with a 9.2/20 for its pre-Sept. 11 opening week in 2001.

Fox averaged a 12.6/26 for its doubleheader NFL coverage, up 1% from a 12.5/26 in 2001. The 1 p.m. EDT regional contests earned a 9.9/21, compared with an 11.0/24 a year ago, while the 4 p.m. national game — with most people seeing the St. Louis Rams lose to the Denver Broncos — scored a 15.3/30, up 9% from a 14.0/27 in 2001.

On the college football front, CBS earned a 6.0/13 on Saturday for its Miami-Florida showdown, while ABC's Alabama-Oklahoma game drew a 3.7/8, down from last year's 4.6/11 for the same weekend.

For baseball, Fox earned a 2.1/5 for its Saturday game as competition from college football and tennis, as well as less-than-compelling games, took a toll.