• by Fern Siegel , August 26, 2009

Tennis, anyone? As in previous years, the U.S. Open is a crowd-pleaser and an ad draw. This round, CBS has sold close to 90% of its commercial inventory at rates comparable to last year.

The ad news, first reported in Mediaweek, quoted John Bogusz, executive vice president, sports sales at CBS, who said there aren't many new advertisers, but tried-and-true sponsors, like AmEx and Lexus, have returned.

CBS will air 21 hours of U.S. Open coverage Sept. 5-7, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Also improving its net game is Cablevision, which has added the Tennis Channel to the iO Sports Pak, in both standard def and HD. That's thanks to an existing agreement between the channel and the National Cable Television Cooperative. Other cable nets, as well as Dish TV and DirecTV, have a similar agreement.

The newest addition to the lineup allows "New York tennis fans to see the Tennis Channel's coverage of the U.S. Open," said John Trierweiler, Cablevision's senior vice president of product management. The cabler has opened channels 399 and 795 for the standard-definition and HD feeds of the Tennis Channel.

The Tennis Channel programming includes "Signature Series," profiles of tennis legends; "Best of Five," a look at classic players and tournaments; and "Open Access" and "No Strings," which explores the off-court world of tennis stars like Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova, James Blake and Sam Querrey.

The iO Sports pack is available for $5.95 per month to digital cable customers that have Family Cable service and above. It includes 15 sports and lifestyle networks.