Faulkner

I liked seeing the players watching from their suites too. I dunno. I find that fans at the USO are the worst of the Slams. Loud, boorish, rude. Lots of finance dudebros and wealthy Manhattanites there just because it’s cool, not because they enjoy tennis, and you can hear the murmur of folks just chatting over the matches, especially in the stadiums. Then the obnoxious drunken hooligans show up in the later rounds. Now you can just hear the crack of the ball off the racquet, and it’s nice. And I agree with Rennae: get rid of the linespeople and leave it up to Hawkeye. Too many crappy calls have marred good matches.

F*** cancer.

Lol Venus cracked me up with her “Uhhh, there’s nobody here.”

Gotta admit: as much as I know it’s unsustainable, I kinda don’t want live fans back in tennis. Much prefer this as a viewing experience.

Poor Yoshi. So many chances he didn’t take in that match.

Lordy. I wonder how much players know about the rules.

From Miami 🇺🇸

Who said Isner was Nadal’s biggest threat at Roland Garros because they had that five-setter waaay back in 2011? It was hilarious.

Good guesses. It’s easy to take titles so literally (when in reality people often don’t).

Opelka and Isner both out in R1, to Goffin and Steve Johnson, respectively.

I guess we won’t know, of course, unless someone spills the tea. Certainly could have been another producer, but I’m not that familiar about who was crew on AMC in that era. (Just saw Casey Childs was also a producer then, as was Ginger Smith.) Probably would end up being some pencil-pusher whose name we’ll never know.

Could it have been Brian Frons? Chadwick also mentions a female exec, and Jean Dadario Burke looks to have been the EP around January 2003. Gordon Rayfield was HW, so could have been him as well?

In relative terms, huge ratings for the commercial-free Black Panther airing on ABC Sunday night. Scored a 1.4 18-49 demo rating, making it the highest-rated telecast of the past week, and the tribute special got a 1.1, the second highest-rated telecast this past week (tied with Wednesday’s Big Brother). And both were up against the MTV VMAs last night.

Some close-by places like Bermuda and a lot of Caribbean nations are now open for U.S. travelers, but not sure about the restrictions. Also not sure if they’d be the most popular places to go during hurricane season.

From Beirut, Lebanon 🇱🇧

That’s funny with JT going in on GH for their big Elizabeth Taylor cameo. Very smart, well-spoken guy.

From Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭