Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo blasts ESPN for overhyping Serena Williams at Wimbledon

I don’t often agree with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, but he has the correct hot take on ESPN overplaying Serena Williams return to professional tennis at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships.

It was all that ESPN could talk about in the early days of the tournament. The network panned away from live tennis to show us Serena stretching.

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Even if Russo is right, ESPN got the last laugh because the ratings for Serena’s Wimbledon match were through the roof.

What Mad Dog said

Known for his animated rants, Mad Dog ironically did not air this one on ESPN, which employs him. He took this one to his Sirus XM show. Russo was on vacation last week so this was festering on his mind since then.

Awful Announcing provided a transcript of what Russo said. Fans know how he yells so they can imagine the inflection of his voice with this rant.

“You would have thought Serena was doing something heroic. I mean, take it easy, will ya? She came back to play a first-round match at Wimbledon after three or four years, lost to a person who hadn’t won a match on the pro tour since January. Can we take it easy? You would have thought with ESPN’s commentary that this was the greatest thing in the history of watching tennis. And I know the ratings were good, but that only shows you and tells you that Serena brings in the casual fan. Because I spoke to a million big tennis fans, a million of them, and they could care less. And a lot of them, by the way, worked at the network. Hijacking the whole thing, and she got beat.”

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One of several ESPN missteps at Wimbledon

If Russo is right and people behind the scenes thought the ESPN overdid the Serena Wimbledon coverage, how will the network handle it if she decides to play the US Open?

This was not the only misstep for ESPN during Wimbledon. Fans are still mad that the majority of coverage was behind the paywall of ESPN Unlimited. Some were angry that longtime ESPN tennis host Chris McKendry was pushed out of the host seat in favor of non-tennis types Rece Davis and Malika Andrews.

Ex-ESPN analyst Pam Shriver added a valid complaint

Former ESPN analyst Pam Shriver added one more complaint to the network coverage. She noted that BBC used an all-female team to cover women’s action; whereas, ESPN did not.