Down under(wear), where the endless summer is coming to a close ... it's the boomerang effect

And the ESPN coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament, the first major sporting event of the year -- oh, right, next to the NFL playoffs leading into the Super Bowl -- starts on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. (which is Monday morning in Melbourne, according to our Mickey Mouse watch).

ESPN is doing all four tennis Grand Slam events this year -- a first for any U.S. network. There's about 100 hours of coverage on ESPN2 with plenty of re-airs. Add to that ESPN360.com having 430 hours. It all points to the finals on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 (Super Bowl Sunday).

Most of the live coverage starts at 12:30 a.m. each day, repeating the following afternoon. Tennis Channel is also getting some of this coverage, produced by ESPN.

Broadcasters include Dick Enberg, Cliff Drysdale and Chris Fowler on the match calls, with analysts Patrick McEnroe, Mary Carillo, Brad Gilbert, Pam Shriver, Darren Cahill and Mary Joe Fernandez, with essays from Bud Collins. Someone named Tiffany Cherry, a Melbourne native who works for ESPN International, also pops in.

With all the channels involved, DirecTV subscribers also have the benefit of expanded coverage with the six-screens-in-one Mix Channel for the first eight days. It has the network that's carrying the event on one screen, then live coverage of five other courts on the rest of the screens. Former ATP players Jeff Tarango and Doug Adler provide commentary. A photo of what the DTV mix looks like is above.

Maria Sharapova has pulled out on the womens' side to take some of the luster away, but leaving the Williams sisters. Aside from the top four on the men's side -- Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, joined by Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray -- Thousand Oaks' Sam Querrery enters the fray with some momentum from an Auckland warmup event leading into this.

"Sam has been working with one of our U.S. coaches in Southern California," said McEnroe, captain of the U.S. Davis Cup squad. "I think this is a great year for Sam, maybe a top 20 is within his reach, or higher. He's worked hard in the offseason. He's still a young man with a lot of weapons, but alot of parts of his game can get better. He has a huge upside and (with the success he's had so far in Australia this week) I could see him having a really good tournament, getting into the second week."

McEnroe also said the Bryan brothers, who have not been ranked the No. 1 world men's doubles team for the first time in a while, are "chomping at the bit to get back" to the top, with Bob's shoulder injury recoving. "They've always played well in Australia," said McEnroe.

There's also been some talk of ESPN helping the Australian Open organizers try to push this tournament away from the end of the NFL season, but Len De Luca, the senior VP of programming and acquisitions for the network, clarified that a bit this week: "We've talked over the years with (former tournament director) Paul McNamee and (current tournament CEO) Steve Wood about all sorts of things. OUr deal runs through January 2011 and the date is always in question. Really, it's a matter of local support wherever they go. Not competing with the NFL and Super Bowl is appealing but by the same token, in March or February or some other time, there's competition, too, from basketball, college and pro.
"So we're agnostic in this debate. We love what we have, soup to nuts, and we'll work with them. There are many competing events (for them to decide to move) from Formula One to rugby locally."

McEnroe also pointed out that as summer comes to a close in Australia during this event, the kid-friendly element would likely disappear from pushing it back in the year.

"The Australian fan base makes it a tough move from where it is," said McEnroe.