AUCKLAND, New Zealand — When the lights went on and the cameras started rolling on the 2017 women’s tennis season, much of the action could not be seen.
After changes to the WTA tour’s streaming and television platforms, women’s tennis matches often proved difficult or impossible to find for many fans during the star-studded opening days of the season. In perhaps the most jarring example, Serena Williams’s first match in four months, last week at the ASB Classic in Auckland, was not available to watch in the United States unless you were resourceful enough to find a pirated stream.