Roger Federer has lost two matches this year, both to Rafael Nadal in tournament finals, yet few tennis fans in America have seen either one. No one has seen both of them.

One could chalk this up to bad timing. No station in the United States broadcast the small Dubai tournament this winter, where Nadal came back from a set down on hard courts. In Monte Carlo, the first leg of the clay court season that is more popular in Europe than America, the Tennis Channel provided hours of excellent coverage for a week, and broadcast the fourset final between Nadal and Federer both live last Sunday morning and later that evening. But the channel remains less widely available. In New York City, for example, customers who do not have Time Warner Cable are out of luck (Dish Network became the first national provider of the channel in February; viewers must purchase a package of 180 channels – rather than 60 or 120 – to receive it).

The larger point is that tennis remains without a comprehensive, full year television schedule, though there have been marked improvements since 2002. The season is one of the longest in all of sports – from January to December, if one includes Davis Cup – and no one major network has the desire or the economic incentive to televise it all. As a result, networks take a break from tennis when tennis players don’t, leaving large gaps in which great tennis is played but not seen (April through May, the clay court season, is the ultimate example). This is something that tour officials know they need to correct.

For the ATP, the governing body of the men’s tour, the television question is of utmost concern. Etienne De Villiers, the agency’s new chairman, hails from the Walt Disney Company, where he was president of Walt Disney Television International and started the Disney Channel. The tour also recently hired a new chief marketing officer, Phil Anderton, the former CEO of the Scottish Rugby Union.

The plan, according to ATP spokesman David Higdon, is to develop mini-seasons in the mold of the U.S. Open Series that the United States Tennis Association (USTA) created two summers ago. In that format, several events are linked over the course of two months or so, with the ultimate goal being a Grand Slam tournament (for the U.S. Open Series, there are chances for players to increase, and even double, prize money at the U.S. Open depending on success in its preceding tournaments).

The prize money is secondary to the TV package. Higdon called it the “perfect TV model for our sport” and said the tour is in talks with the French Tennis Federation to create a “Road to Roland Garros” that would operate in a similar fashion during the clay court season. The hope is to have an outline of the plan by this year’s U.S. Open, in late August.

If large American television networks are to get on board, the length of the tennis season may need to be addressed. Both men and women have complained recently that the long season leaves players prone to injury and allows too little time to rest or spend in the weight room. From the perspective of television networks, the season is too bulky to cover in full – even for a sports network like ESPN. In the last three years there has been more tennis on television than in any time in recent memory, thanks largely to ESPN2’s return to the French Open, its addition of Wimbledon, and its deal with the USTA for the U.S. Open Series. At the Australian Open in January, the network consistently added hours when the tournament dictated. Still, there is too much tennis, and two of this year’s best matches went virtually unnoticed by American viewers as a result.

“Just as we can’t have all sports – and we’ve seen sports leave ESPN over the years – we realize we can’t do all tennis,” Dave Nagle, a press relations manager at ESPN, said.

There are, of course, numerous other variables that could eventually affect how tennis is viewed on television. If a la carte cable television, by which viewers can purchase whatever channels or events they like, takes off, it could present more options (and perhaps more reach for the Tennis Channel). The men’s tour recently launched Masters Series TV on the Internet (for $9 a tournament or a discounted $50 for a year) for access to footage from Masters Series events like Monte Carlo. But so far it does not allow viewers to watch entire matches, just extensive highlights, player interviews, and other features. It’s too steep a price for too little product.

Federer and Nadal could meet in the finals in Rome and Hamburg this month, and then again at the French Open. During the next four or five years, they could meet in dozens of contests, with many undoubtedly on clay. What a shame it would be if fans missed much of what may one day be recognized as one of the greatest rivalries tennis has ever known.

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A week after dumping Federer in Monte Carlo, Nadal defended his title at the Open Seat Godo tournament in Barcelona yesterday with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-0 victory over fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo. Nadal has now won 47 consecutive matches on clay, passing Bjorn Borg (46) for second place in that regard (Guillermo Vilas won 53). Another Spaniard, Nicolas Almagro, continued his strong clay season by reaching the semifinals, where he lost to Nadal. Almagro should be a dangerous opponent at the French Open, which begins later this month.

tperrotta@nysun.com