The Grand Slam network has completed its cable Grand Slam sweep.

ESPN and the USTA have come to terms on a contract that will give the network U.S. Open cable rights starting in 2009 inside sources close to the deal tell Tennis Week. ESPN already owns or shares cable television rights with Tennis Channel for the season's first three Grand Slam tournaments: the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. 

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by sources. Neither ESPN nor the USTA have confirmed the contract to Tennis Week.

"We have said for months we're talking to the USTA about the U.S. Open but there is no update," an ESPN spokesman told Tennis Week today.

Nine days ago, ESPN announced it had extended its Wimbledon rights for six years.

Rumors circulated for years that ESPN's commitment to televising the U.S. Open Series — the summer-long series of North American tournaments leading up to the season's final major in New York City — came with an implied agreement from the USTA that when USA Network's contract for Open rights came to an end, ESPN would take over as the Open's cable television home.

ESPN officials would not confirm such an agreement existed in past interviews with Tennis Week.

USA Network's U.S. Open cable rights expire at the end of the 2008 Flushing Meadows major and USA Network execs have said they will not renew rights.

ESPN has televised the U.S. Open Series since it's inception and its partnership with the USTA on the U.S. Open Series made its eventual acquisition of U.S. Open rights seemingly inevitable.

In recent years, Bristol-based ESPN reduced its its coverage of Masters Series events and Davis Cup opting instead to invest its resources and programming time televising the Grand Slams and U.S. Open Series events.

ESPN did not renew its rights for Davis Cup, the Sony  Ericsson Open in Miami, the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, the Tennis Masters Cup and  the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships. It was a shift in programming  strategy as the network now focuses its tennis coverage primarily on the three majors — the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon — that it already telecasts either solely or in partnership with the Tennis Channel.

The new deal should exponentially expand both the tennis audience for the Open and the ad revenue for ESPN.

In return, the USTA should receive unprecedented levels of exposure for its crown jewel, the U.S. Open, by gaining its most comprehensive coverage of the tournament (CBS owns network rights to the Open). Since ESPN can shift late-running matches between three potential networks — ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic — instances of viewers missing the conclusion of late-night matches that could occur on occasion when USA Network cut away at 11 p.m. Eastern time for regularly-scheduled programming should be reduced.

Pontential web streaming of U.S. Open Series events and the U.S. Open would generate even greater exposure for the Open translating into more advertising and sponsorship dollars for the USTA, which recently announced Olympus has taken over as title sponsor of the U.S. Open Series.

The network that has long billed itself as "The Grand Slam Network" will complete its cable television Grand Slam sweep starting next year.