Big Bash League's television ratings stay strong despite challenge of Australian Open tennis A half century to Steve Smith and some clever bowling from Nathan Lyon has helped the Sydney Sixers to second on the Big Bash League table with a seven run win over Hobart Hurricanes. Steve Smith in action for the Sydney Sixers against the Hobart Hurricanes at the SCG. THE Big Bash League has absorbed the occasional forehand smash to prove itself a robust ratings product against the juggernaut challenge of Australian Open tennis. Tennis has beaten beat the BBL in nightly ratings this week but the BBL's numbers have not been decimated and the diminishing number of Australians in action could narrow the gap in the two sports next week. The BBL game between the Sydney Sixers and Hobart Hurricanes on Wednesday peaked at 1.18 million viewers despite the challenge of Australian Grand Slam winner Sam Stosur beating Tsvetana Pironkova on Channel 7. Stosur helped the night session of the tennis draw 828,000 capital city viewers with session one of the BBL attracting 591,000 and session two 610,000. Tennis convincingly won on Tuesday night when Bernard Tomic withdrew from his match against Rafael Nadal, drawing 1,060,000 capital city viewers compared to just over 500,000 in the BBL game where the Sydney Thunder broke a 19-game losing streak. Though BBL figures have dipped slightly since the tennis they have remained strong. "The Big Bash has held up very well," said media analyst Ian Warner from Moonlighting. With the number of Australians involved in the Open getting smaller the gap between the Big Bash and tennis will probably close further. Tennis should win in the end because of the event's long history. But I know there are people from Channel 10 who are looking forward to next year's Big Bash. There were sponsors who got in on the ground floor this year who got a bargain given what the Big Bash has rated. They expected it to rate around 500,000 a night and some nights it has rated about twice as much as that.