Best bet on broadcast: NBC, second-day coverage of the U.S. Open, 3 p.m. This will be a best bet through Sunday; coverage continues the next two days at 1:30 p.m. Considering the network decided to slice ties to the NBA, leaving it with no major sporting franchise, NBC Sports still has done pretty well this year thanks to horse racing, boxing and now golf. But if Tiger Woods isn’t in the final two or three pairings, ratings won’t compare to last year’s record numbers.

Best bet on cable: Disney, “Lizzie McGuire,” 7:30 p.m. One of the final new “Lizzie” installments filmed before series star Hilary Duff cut ties with the network airs tonight. Duff had reportedly been talking about moving “Lizzie,” or some mutation of the show, to ABC primetime. Since Duff and her parents walked away from the Mouse, other networks are reportedly interested in a Duff teen show as a midseason replacement or 2004-2005 show.

Top sporting event: ABC, NBA finals Game 5, New Jersey Nets vs. San Antonio Spurs, 8:30 p.m. Total viewership for this series has dipped 38 percent versus last year’s finals on NBC. On the bright side, it's a competitive series.

Best bet on broadcast: Fox, “America’s Most Wanted,” 9 p.m. Newsmagazines have been doing fairly well so far this summer, with CBS’s “48 Hours Investigates” and NBC’s “Dateline” on Friday keeping the lights on. But “AMW” actually pulls a decent audience the rest of the year, too. Saturday isn’t that important a night, but when many women are switching to cable to watch TLC’s “Trading Spaces,” “AMW” and the show that precedes it, “Cops,” get decent male viewership.

Best bet on cable: A&E, “Martha Stewart: Recipe for Ruin,” 10 p.m. A&E rushed this “Biography”-like documentary on the air at just the right time, just over a week removed from Stewart’s indictment. There’s less camp here than in NBC’s recent movie “Martha Inc.,” but it may be more interesting, as it includes in-depth coverage of the ImClone fiasco.

Top sporting event: ESPN, U.S. women’s soccer team versus Ireland, 8:55 p.m. It’s not so much the matchup as the sport that’s important. Many people are wondering whether the women’s World Cup, which has been moved from China to the U.S. this fall because of SARS concerns, can equal, much less surpass, the interest last time around. It’s doubtful. For one thing, last time the Cup aired in the summer, when alternatives are few. For another, despite all the hype over the women’s win, the Cup-inspired WUSA league is drawing tiny audiences at home and on television. It’s a problem to keep an eye on.

Best bet on broadcast: CBS, “Charlie Lawrence,” 8:30 p.m. One of three new scripted comedies to premiere this summer on the broadcast networks, “Charlie Lawrence” stars Tony winner Nathan Lane as an openly gay Congressman. Unlike Fox’s new “Keen Eddie,” which follows “American Juniors,” this show won’t benefit from its lead-in; “Becker” wasn’t even picked up for next season. But anything short of an embarrassment will be an improvement for Lane, whose last show, “Encore! Encore!” for NBC, remains an industry punchline.

Best bet on cable: Showtime, “Out of Order,” 10:45 p.m. HBO’s original programming gets most of the attention, but this new Showtime offering is actually pretty good. It co-stars Felicity Huffman, fresh from a stint on NBC’s “Frasier,” and Eric Stoltz as a married screenwriting team. At times it tends toward the precious – Stoltz imagines his life as one big movie script – but it has intensity and a sense of humor. And Showtime re-shows the episodes enough that if you miss one, you can certainly find it another day.

Top sporting event: Fox, NASCAR Winston Cup 12:30 p.m. Household ratings for last week’s Pocono 500 race on Fox increased 11 percent versus the year before. Some not-so-southern venues actually showed the biggest increases: Baltimore (104 percent), St. Louis (89 percent) and New York (82 percent). This week’s race is again up north, moving from Pennsylvania to Michigan, so that could mean similar gains.

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