Faulkner

I just saw some of the highlights. Damn, she was really outhitting Aryna.

Wow, Anisimova beat the brakes off Sabalenka. I know Amanda is very good, but what happened there? I can’t watch many matches this year.

The Konta/Muguruza match started after midnight (latest start for the AO ever), and it’s STILL going on (after 3 am Melbourne time.) They were scheduled to play the last night session on MCA, but Zverev/Chardy went five sets, so they announced they were moving to Court 3. Unfortunately that court was covered in seagull poop, and the Open didn’t have enough staff at that point to clean up. So on to Margaret Court Arena they went. They could have moved them to any other court when they saw the Zverev match might run long. Meanwhile, Serena suffering no fools as usual: Muguruza just won, so here’s the R32:

Mess.

Raonic beat Stan, and Herbert took out Chung, whose ranking will plummet. Thiem apparently is suffering some kind of illness and retired against the young Aussie Alexei Popyrin. Serena waved off Genie rather easily and will play the winner of Halep/Venus(!) next after both won in three. This is a STAT:

My mom loved her some HBS as Margo. She almost dumped ATWT (her favorite) to watch OLTL with me when she saw HBS was playing Nora.

Wow at Kei pulling it out in spite of Ivo playing probably his best match in years. That was actually quite spellbinding.

So Ivo is redlining...

I follow Elina on IG but what? Monfils gets around the WTA circuit: Cibulkova, Cornet, most likely Azarenka.

I’ve heard previous interviews with Kay, and I never noticed she had such a pronounced stammer. Granted, those interviews were ages ago, so she could have acquired it over the years. And perhaps she was having trouble remembering or trying to be precise with her words (she is a writer, after all). Or she was trying to be diplomatic about difficult topics. Who knows? I just know, having done my share of editing podcasts and audio interviews over the years, he should have edited a lot of that out. It was extremely distracting and annoying. I’m not saying he should have the precision of an NPR producer (they can make the most inarticulate people sound like they’ve taken elocution lessons—it’s incredible). But it’s easy enough to remove “um’s and ah’s” (in a natural way) in Audacity or Garage Band even. I just hope Kay is open to more interviews. She seemed to be fond of this particular interviewer in spite of our criticisms, but he was also pretty sycophantic. I know @EricMontreal22 interviewed her for his thesis, so maybe she’s pretty accessible, but I’m sure there’s a lot she won’t divulge.

LMAO

The audio quality was poor, and it could have used a lot of trimming of dead air and Kay’s constant stammering. And, as you said, no follow up at all. He just stubbornly adhered to his list of questions instead of letting a conversation flow naturally. Perhaps certain topics were agreed in advance as off-limits due to NDAs or what-have-you, but the interviewer ignored a lot of interesting threads. Kay told some great stories (like her relationship with the Bells), but all in all it was a frustrating, tedious listen.

Berdych is looking *really* good.

Pavlyuchenkova takes out Bertens.

I think tennis screwed themselves. They haven’t positioned themselves well for the future, overinvested in Federer über alles, and they now have to create Olympics-style sob-story melodrama to make it all relevant to a dwindling number of casual fans. The game itself isn’t cutting it, so they barely show it. I was pissed there was no way to (legally) watch the Azarenka/Siegemund match. Serena is the only one who really transcends the sport on a level where Americans are interested in her life outside of tennis. It’s unique for any athlete really. That’s a LeBron/Tom Brady/ARod level of fame/notoriety. Some people will tune in just to see if she loses it.

They didn’t even show the Azarenka match, which was very tight in the first set, and she’s a two-time champ who has somewhat of a profile here (sponsorships) and a compelling narrative (her custody struggles). Instead they showed a Zverev blowout over Bedene. They have gone all in on Federer (first and foremost), Nadal, Serena, and Maria (still), with a few scraps for players like Novak, Venus, Wozniacki, Halep, and a handful of Americans with limited skill sets. Sascha and Naomi are the only non-U.S. up-and-comers they pay any attention to.