Faulkner

Genie Bouchard had arthroscopic surgery on her right shoulder: https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1DmBZrstT/?utm_medium=copy_link

The men’s draw is shaping up mostly as expected. The bottom half is all of full or half Russian parentage.

Second week at No. 1 for BTS.

Xander got “left at the altar” by Kristen/Sarah, married Chanel, banged Nicole, and is now mixing it up with Gwen. He’s basically the straw that stirs the drink for any story right now.

From the little I saw, it seemed like he was legit injured or maybe just overexerted himself to take the opening two sets.

And Musetti retires against Novak… lordt.

Meanwhile, after falling two sets down (in two TBs)… And Sakkari beating the brakes off Kenin, yikes…

Novak is making a mess of this match against Musetti. Oy. Should have known not to get my hopes up. Meanwhile, Coco is cruising.

From NYC 🇺🇸

I’m listening now. I just ❤️ her.

Aw. Michael Cole is now the last surviving member of the Mod Squad.

And they’re playing favorites with people who are on the last legs of their careers. And then when the other big superstar (Naomi) withdraws early, they’re caught flat-footed. Pretty much they’re now relying on Coco, who they prefer over even Rafole.

It doesn’t help that they only show the big stars, so people can get familiar with the up-and-comers. Like I get it, but it’s short-sighted and a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are replaying Federer/Koepfer on NBC (both of whom are now out of the tournament) instead of letting people watch Fokina/Delbonis, one of whom will make the quarters. NBC’s ratings don’t make me any money either way. I just wanna watch some competitive tennis, big stars or not.

Rybakina just took out Serena. NBC’s coverage of this tournament is… weird, to say the least.

So Kirsten Storms had brain surgery to remove a cyst that had split in two? https://deadline.com/2021/06/general-hospital-star-kirsten-storms-acknowledges-recent-brain-surgery-1234770061/

As somewhat expected with his press statements yesterday, Federer has withdrawn from RG after his marathon win against Koepfer. Berrettini advances to the QF against Djokovic or Musetti.

From Paraguay 🇵🇾

From Indonesia 🇮🇩

SNL was the No. 1 entertainment series (meaning excluding sports) in the 18-49 demo across all of ad-supported TV this past season, beating even The Masked Singer and This Is Us. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/snl-ratings-no-1-2020-21-season-1234963138/

Also, we all noticed how watered-down Will had become, and even former serial killer Ben is now a self-pitying, neurotic Mary Sue. They’ve become neutered. Basically, the guys are pretty vanilla aside from Xander and the villain du jour (currently Michael Lowry’s character), while the ladies get to have all the fun (Gabi, Kate, Sami, Abby, et al. aren’t out-and-out villains but they get to scheme and be witheringly funny). Not entirely shocking for a female genre, but still… would it hurt to have preserved some of Tripp’s early ne’er-do-well energy while still making him generally a decent guy?

Genie is killing it. What else is new? But Jeff Kober is actually matching her for the first time during his whole GH tenure. He’s hella talented, so it’s not a shock. They got all the black folks wrapped up in this drama. We love to see it. Can we not with the Hellmann’s-on-Wonder-Bread love scene? RH is playing this Austin reasonably mild-mannered for now, but Goofus is right there under the surface.

Xander’s mostly played for yuks and beefcake, but I feel like he’s RC’s best recent male example of a grey character.

He and Ash Barty both looked so strong this season…