Faulkner

And wow:

19 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

He played 4 straight weeks and then two weeks in Paris.....so he shouldn't be tired? 

Even the commentators said he looked tired.

It just makes those long runs of the Big 4 (especially early in their careers) that much more impressive. Maybe his conditioning will improve.

EDIT: Just heard Zverev had a hamstring injury, which makes more sense.

Good news for Kyrgios, who looked a bit injured himself, in his section of the draw:

27 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

Borna 6-1 first set over Sasha.....Sasha still looks like he is out gas physically and mentally.

Not sure what Sascha has to be tired about. He hasn’t played since the French QF. Unless he’s injured...

9 minutes ago, Khan said:

Claire Labine was a big fan of Greek tragedy, and a big believer in psychology, so that might explain some things.

 

Similarly, I think I read somewhere that one of Agnes Nixon's biggest influences was Louisa May Alcott.  If so, then THAT might explain why stories about young love, mixed with contemporary issues, tended to be where Nixon shone greatest as a writer.

 

I know we've said this before, but it always bears repeating: Wisner Washam never gets enough credit for the tremendous work he did as AMC's HW during the early- and mid-'80's.  In the entire history of that show, in fact, there were only three writers who truly "got" AMC: Agnes Nixon (of course), Lorraine Broderick (even if she wrote more clunkers than the other two) and Washam.

When I wrote Claire a letter way back in my high school years about my writing aspirations, the first thing she said in her response was, “Read the Greeks.” 

That’s interesting, @danfling. I was just curious because I never really watched Nixon shows when she was actually driving the storylines. (I began AMC during McTavish and OLTL during Malone, and Loving never aired in my hometown.) I had just never heard many complaints about her writing or discussions about her blindspots (whereas I hear tons about other masters like Bell, Labine, Marland, et al). 

1 hour ago, Cat said:

I have loved Beyoncé since her DC days, and after the Coachella excellence that she delivered, Apes**t is disappointing. The track reminds me of CL + Diplo's Doctor Pepper song. It is basically the equivalent of Nene Leakes saying "I am RICH, BITCH!" for 6 minutes.

 

Maybe I'm comparing it too much to Formation which gave me chills from the first second.

 

Haven't heard the album yet, is it a collaboration album between her and Jay-Z or is it entirely Beyoncé?

It’s attributed to “The Carters,” so it appears to be a joint album. Surprisingly they have released it on Spotify and Apple Music today, not just Tidal. I haven’t listened yet.

If you had to note any weaknesses about Agnes Nixon’s writing, what would they be? I rarely read anything negative about her. 

9 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

@FaulknerAnd it's Venus' Birthday today too! 

I hope she celebrates just a little bit harder than usual. 😆 

Krunic just won her first WTA tour title.

Federer just won his 98th. If he wins Halle, he’ll be working his way to 100 at Wimbledon.

Beyoncé and Jay Z just released a surprise collaboration album.

Hardwick has pulled out of his Comic-Con panels, and AMC is temporarily pulling his talk show pending an investigation.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/chris-hardwick-withdrawals-from-moderating-comic-con-panels.html?utm_campaign=vulture&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=fb

Ash Barty beat Osaka in seemingly routine straights in Nottingham. Konta and Vekic, who I believe had a very competitive match at Wimbledon a couple years ago, are next up in the semis there.

Remember Krunic, who had that fairytale run at the USO a few years back? She just came back from a set down to beat Coco in two tiebreakers in ‘s-Hertogenbosch SF. Krunic will play Flipkens in the final.

1 hour ago, Soapsuds said:

Andy vs Kyrgios first round next week The draw looks real good for the tourney in England.

After the first set Roger hoping and praying that Kyrgios is not on his side of the draw at Wimbledon.

We’ll see. Nick is making a mess out of the second set. He thought he could just ace Roger out of the court, but the double faults are piling up and when Roger actually gets a return in play, point Roger.

EDIT: Nick got it to a third set TB, but he can sometimes let up against the better players he likes personally (Murray, Fed) as we’ve seen before. He often can be unplayable when he’s serving out of his mind (like the Acapulco match against a befuddled, antsy Novak), but I don’t know if that holds up best-of-five over two weeks. And... he’s injury-prone and gets unsettled when calls or circumstances don’t go his way.

Chris Hardwick has released a statement in which he denies Chloe Dykstra’s claims and says he ended their relationship because Chloe cheated on him.

https://deadline.com/2018/06/chris-hardwick-denies-abuse-allegations-chloe-dyskstra-1202411897/

Leslie Grantham (Dirty Den) has died at 71.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jun/15/leslie-grantham-obituary?CMP=fb_gu

Federer/Kyrgios semi in Stuttgart. Raonic/Pouille on the other half.

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Chloe Dykstra wrote a piece about the psychological abuse she suffered at the hands of a former boyfriend (if you have a thing about eating disorders you won't want to read this). She doesn't name names, but I keep seeing people say they think it's Chris Hardwick.

 

https://medium.com/@skydart/rose-colored-glasses-6be0594970ca

Yesterday, before this came out, BBCA announced him as the moderator for the Doctor Who panel with the first female Doctor at SDCC. I can imagine they are in a tough spot, as Chris is the face of AMC Networks fandom. My prediction is that he’ll bow out himself to save them from having to fire him from the gig.

10 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

I remember after Serena won her first major, she was still winning tournaments but she wouldn't become a true Slam contender again for another two years (until 2001 when she lost to Venus at the U.S. Open).  U.S. viewers stayed loyal to the sport perhaps because Venus was winning a lot, then you also had Lindsey Davenport who was also a contender for big titles  and on the men's side you started to see the emergence of Andy Roddick but all in all, fans were still following the sport (plenty of men were following Kournikova, for reasons we all can guess).

Back then, CBS, NBC and even ABC (sometimes) was showing tennis. For many years (especially in the 90s), it was possible to see the autumn swing (which was mainly in Europe, in those days) almost every weekend on basic cable!  No expensive digital tier!  This is what I mean by accessibility of the sport.  I hear tennis fans complaining that they subscribe to WTA TV, yet they're still missing matches!  

 

Tennis is the only sport, I truly follow on a consistent basis yet, I sometimes find myself watching NBA finals or even an occasional holiday game between teams(on ABC and ESPN, ESPN3) because it's nice to be able to consistently catch games. Tennis used to be this way but is no longer-- in fact, tennis makes it difficult to find and keep up with the sport.  You have to be a dedicated fan to put up with half this nonsense.

It’s easy to compare it to golf, which is similarly a country club sport, yet it’s hard to go a week without seeing a tournament on one of the broadcast networks. The PGA audience skews even older than the tennis viewership. But there are many important differences, I know.

24 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

Actually the 1.1 rating and 1.62 million viewers isn't that bad. Last year's final with Nadal vs Anderson at the US Open was much lower and didn't even come close to hitting the million mark in the viewers and had a lower than 1.0 rating. The problem with tennis is that the media pimps the same players and doesn't feature the up and comers(Thiem's wasn't even shown until the fourth round)....and the American males suck so no interest for some in watch. I am surprised the women's wasn't higher with Sloane in the finals. The US Open numbers for the women's matches were higher.

My theory: I think there was a bit of a drumbeat for last year’s USO women’s final due to it being two black American women (biracial in Madison’s case), and there had been four Americans in the semis (with Coco and especially Venus, a legit household name who transcends the sport). I also think Sloane squandered some of her momentum after winning the Slam with all those losses, especially in with the failure to make an impact at the next GS in Australia, so there was less interest in her here (Miami win notwithstanding).

EDIT: We’d almost certainly have gotten a boost if Serena hadn’t gotten injured and had advanced. But the Kerbers, Muguruzas, Haleps—excellent players, not stars here.

16 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

The article says that the viewership is up from last year, I know.  

Compared to Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, even the Australian, Roland Garros seems less accessible to the U.S. audience.

 

Roland Garros barely got any media coverage in mainstream media.  Only NYC sports news the women's final got less than 30 seconds, the men's got a bit more because Nadal is a known name.

Even the fact that two U.S. players (Sloane and Madison) reached the SFs got no coverage in the mainstream media.  

I hate to say this but since ESPN has basically abandoned the clay court season (and tennis in general, to a certain extent), there has been scant broader coverage of tennis outside of the very small, insular tennis media.

Not everyone has TC, which tends to favor U.S. men (who, per usual, did poorly at RG).

You can't grow a viewership this way.

 

The tennis audience is aging more quickly than even the daytime soap audience, which is crazy. The sport is speeding toward irrelevance.

One of the greatest songs of all time.

15 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

One of those tabloid sites claimed a few months ago it was their daughter's death making her have enough of him. I don't know.

 

Wait - are they getting their new from Radar? That is not a reliable site. 

 

Vulture seems to be getting more and more blatantly tabloid-ish.

I like David Marchese and E. Alex Jung’s interviews a lot (Marchese’s interview with Quincy Jones was the most talked-about, but he’s gotten thoughtful, off-script stuff from many celebs; Jung’s interview with RuPaul was brilliant). But I think Vulture, like all outlets who get the bulk of their content from aggregating, can be desperate and slapdash in the quest for clicks, so I can understand some ambivalence. And they do slavishly pander to the most obnoxious elements on social media.

1 minute ago, cassadine1991 said:

This Degrassi reunion was EVERYTHING

 

Lol. The guy knows when to play his cards. It was only a matter of time.

2 minutes ago, Vee said:

Camille has moved out.

After all this time and years of credible allegations, what was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Just the conviction?