As a man who had charged his way up through the often destroy-your-opponent worlds of advertising, television and the Murdoch media empire, Hamish McLennan had learnt how to size up and play a distant opportunity.

In March 2013, the new chief executive of Network Ten Holdings reached out to his counterpart at Tennis Australia, Steve Wood, with what the passage of history suggests was a mischievous offer: the perennially third-ranked commercial TV network might be willing to pay $50 million a year to broadcast the Australian Open at home.