Tennis Fans Hit The 'Net

Once again Tim Henman is a few hours away from a possible Wimbledon semi-final - it would be his fifth - and his official Web site has shot up the rankings in the last week according to data from Hitwise. However, 'though Henman is famously good at the net, he is by no means No.1 on the Web.

Notwithstanding the attentions of Britain's title-starved tennis fans [the last win by a Brit was Fred Perry in 1936], Henman's site www.timhenman.org has been overtaken in the rankings by that of fifth seeded Andy Roddick, winner of the Stella Artois Championships last month. www.andyroddick.com is currently the 6th most visited tennis site. The two players are in separate halves of the draw, and scheduled to meet in the Wimbledon Final, although other players including Sebastien Grosjean, two sets to one up against Henman as this goes to press, may have something to say about that.

Traffic to the official Wimbledon Championships web site www.wimbledon.org has boomed, not surprisingly - it jumped 95 places in the Hitwise Sports rankings in the last 2 weeks, and was the 8th most visited sports web site last week, attracting 1.87% of traffic to the sector. Visitors spent an average of 8 minutes and 11 seconds on the site, about the length of the average break between showers, or of a first-round Serena Williams match.

Traffic to the official site is slightly down on the same period last year, falling by 2%, perhaps reflecting the record numbers who have managed to see the tournament In Real Life.

British fans' inability in many cases to maintain their interest in the sport beyond a month every summer has been much bemoaned by the commentators this year, but the official site has been bookmarked by a respectable 3.93% of visitors in the last week. This is roughly half the proportion who bookmark one of tennis' most enduringly popular sites, www.kournikova.com . Perhaps not surprising when one considers her high profile on the circuit - were it not for withdrawal due to a lower back problem, Miss Kournikova would this week be gracing a tournament in Birmingham.

Rank	Name (Show Domain)	Market Share
1.	Wimbledon Championships	65.73%
2.	Wimbledon Shop	3.53%
3.	ATP Tennis	3.28%
4.	Lawn Tennis Association	2.81%
5.	Tennisrulz.com	2.79%
6.	Andy Roddick	1.35%
7.	TimHenman.org	1.25%
8.	issforum2001.com	1.23%
9.	WTA Tour	1.07%
10.	WTA World	1.00%

Rank	Name (Show Domain)	Market Share
1.	BBC Sport	9.06%
2.	Football365.com	2.79%
3.	BetFair	2.49%
4.	Sky Sports	2.49%
5.	Rivals.net	2.41%
6.	TEAMtalk.com	2.31%
7.	William Hill Sportsbook	2.24%
8.	Wimbledon Championships	1.87%
9.	RacingPost.co.uk	1.80%
10.	BestBetting.com by MSN	1.41%

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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