2015 US OPEN: Women's Semifinals Postponed Due To Rain

Due to rain, the women's semifinals at the U.S. Open are being moved to the day session (11am EDT/8am PDT) on Friday with the men's semifinals starting at 5pm EDT/2pm PDT).

Here is the order of play:

2015 US OPEN: Women's Semifinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the women's quarterfinals at the US Open for 2015. Last year I correctly predicted 2 of 4 women's quarterfinals and correctly predicted 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals. This year I correctly predicted 2 of 4 women's quarterfinals and 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals.

Serena Williams (USA) [1] vs Roberta Vinci (ITA) [16]. As I said before when I was predicting the women's quarterfinals, this semifinal was going to be irrelevant. The more interesting topic to discuss is the fact that for the second time in this tournament, Serena lost a set. The fact that it was against her sister Venus is not surprising, and to be sure, it never really looked like the defending champion was in danger of losing this match. Vinci did well to win a match I did not expect her to win by gutting out a 3-set win over Kiki Mladenovic. However, as an Italian journalist admitted in a press conference today, "Even in Italy we think [Vinci] has no chance." Despite the fact that she has never lost a set in 4 meetings to Vinci, Serena refuses to take anything for granted and said "She's in the semifinals for a reason." Amazingly, Vinci is one of three different Italian women to be in the semifinals of the U.S. Open in the last four years (Sara Errani in 2012, Pennetta in 2013, Vinci and Pennetta in 2015). Things did not work out too well for the Italians before and I doubt it will this year. PREDICTION: Williams.

Petra Kvitova (CZE) [5] Flavia Pennetta (ITA) [26] vs. Simona Halep (ROU) [2].  Pennetta surprised many people by taking out the 2-time Wimbledon champion in three tough sets. She was down a set and a break when P3tra started losing the range on her shots and allowed the Italian to escape with a 4-6 7-5 6-4 win. Halep's win was even more dramatic. She was playing another 2-time major champion in Victoria Azarenka, someone whom she had never beaten before. Things started off well for Halep, who won the first set by earning an early break and holding to take it 6-3, but then it was mostly one-way traffic in Vika's favor until the clouds grew grey and stormy. Just before play was suspended in the third set, Halep was able to get the break back despite being down 0-2 and ended up winning the final set 6-4. Major semifinals are incredibly important matches, as the winner gets to make history by apperaning in a major final. Halep is 1-1 in major semifinals to date while Pennetta is 0-1. Pennetta may actually think that she has more pressure on her because she has a 3-1 head-to-head advantage over Halep. However, that one win came earlier this year in Miami on hard courts while the losses occurred before Halep became the player she is today. PREDICTION: Halep. 

BOOK REVIEW: Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Aurora is actually structured as seven medium-length chapters that are really connected novelettes (or is it novellas?) All I knew about this book was that it was written by Kim Stanley Robinson (who is best well-known as the award-winning author of the Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars trilogy), that it is one of the most well-received hard science fiction books of 2015 and that it is about a generation ship or arc ship flying 12 light years to Tau Ceti (a trip that takes nearly 2 centuries at sub-luminal speeds). Although Robinson's Mars trilogy is well-regarded by many people, I have never been able to finish one of his books before (including trying the first book in that trilogy). However this time my experience with a book written by Kim Stanley Robinson was quite different since I couldn't put Aurora down and raced through it from start to finish in under 24 hours! Some other readers have complained about a slow beginning to the book but I'm not one of them. I was sucked in right away by the setting of the book on a space ship that has been on a journey to the stars for well over a century. This scenario is one of the classic situations of science fiction and represents a real, possible future for humanity. The verisimilitude of the situation I found completely compelling and this had me immediately invested in the characters, especially Devi, Freya's mom, the unofficial Chief Engineer of the Ship.

Devi's daughter Freya becomes the most important human character in the book, the person we follow for the rest of the book after Devi's departure from the narrative after the end of the second chapter. The character I identified with the most, and the one probably most important to the narrative arc of the story is The Ship, the name given for the central computer on the ship, who is re-programmed by Devi to use "greedy algorithms" and other modifications which eventually lead to something resembling self-awareness by Ship.

There are stretches of the book where I found it impossible to put down, even there is always a LOT of information and technical data being thrown at the reader (providing context and details of the journey of the ship and its human inhabitants). In particular, chapters 2 through 4 are increasingly compelling as the stakes for our Ship dwellers get raised higher and higher and the suspense becomes more and more intense. Interestingly, it is not just the hard science of interstellar travel which comes to dominate the book but the ``soft" sciences of sociology, psychology and politics that become increasingly important as the interpersonal dynamics of the ship's population change dramatically as the ship reaches its destination and the dwellers are forced to respond to what they find there. Also biology (or more specifically zoology) also plays a key role in what happens on the ship and to our Ship dwellers.

I was somewhat disappointed by the ending, which basically seems to make an argument AGAINST the premise of man's colonization of the stars. This seems like a curious position to take for a hard sci-fi author and is a view I think is antithetical to how most science fiction fan's view humanity's future. To be fair, Robinson does seem to endorse man's travel to other planets in the solar system, it's interstellar travel that the book seems to be frowning upon. In fact, Robinson explicitly endorses a notion of Earth exceptionalism that for humans to prosper they need to have the possibility of returning to Earth in  a single lifetime; by definition this curtails the possibility of sub-luminal interstellar travel. 

Regardless of Robinson's questionable concluding message Aurora is a gripping, compelling work of speculative fiction that I am confident will capture the imagination of many other science fiction fans.

Title: Aurora.
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson.
Paperback: 480 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: July 7, 2015.
Date Read: August 30, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

TENNIS TUESDAY: A Short Photo Essay On My Labor Day Trip To The U.S. Open

Fourth Round match between Kevin Anderson and Andy Murray

This shot is taken from Section 111 (right next to the ESPN commentators booth). I arrived during the middle set of the Halep-Lisicki match and basically every seat in the stadium (including the one I had paid for!) was taken. I waited until Halep won the second set and then kicked the person out of my seat. Then I proceeded to sit there through the last set of the women's match (which Halep won 6-7 7-5 6-2) and the first  three sets of the Murray-Anderson match (which took well over three-and-a-half hours). The tennis was excellent, and I was quite impressed with Anderson's two-handed backhand and his ability to move for a 6-foot-8 guy. I was also impressed by Halep's grit fighting through physical difficulties herself even as Lisicki started cramping at 2-all in the final set. He is much more than just a huge serve and  a big forehand; moves about as well as Del Potro. Like the Argentinean, Anderson can crush the ball. The forehand winner he hit at 6-5 in the first set tiebreak was clocked at 108 miles per hour!

Shot of Section 111 (where I sat  for the Murray-Anderson match)
showing how empty the stadium was for the Berdych-Gasquet
match

I left the court at the end of the third set tiebreak (which Murray won) to give my aching bladder some relief and to try, recharge my iPhone at the American Express lounge (they have portable mophie chargers for cardmembers) and see if I could see some of the Federer match on the big screen. Every screen was showing the last set of the Murray-Anderson match so I saw the last few games and the tiebreak on the 60" TV screen in the Amex Cardmembers upstairs lounge.

Courtside shot of Richard Gasquet in his 4th Round
match against Tomas Berdych

I went and got some food and a drink and by this time the Federer match was on the big screens outside (it was 9pm so the lounge was closed). After Federer won the first set (curiously by the same score that Anderson won his tiebreak less than 30 minutes before--7-0) I went back to Louis Armstrong, which was like a ghost town. Berdych had won the first set 6-2 but the second set was starting. There were announcements that only Day session reserved seat holders were being let in but no one checked my ticket and I walked in and in a few minutes was sitting courtside near the right-hand baseline (from the perspective of the umpire). It was a great perspective to see the amazing talent and skill of both Gasquet and Berdych. I saw the second and third sets of the Berdych-Gasquet match and then around 11:15pm I had had enough tennis and left the courts. While on the 7 train back to Manhattan I got notification on my phone that Gasquet and Federer had closed out their matches.

It was a great experience, it will be interesting to see how next year is different since they are changing the Louis Armsrong stadum and moving Grandstand to over by Court 17, to make two "small show courts" and two "large show courts" (Ashe and Armstrong).

2015 US OPEN: Men's Quarterfinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the men's quarterfinals at the US Open for 2015. Last year I correctly predicted 2 of 4 women's quarterfinals and correctly predicted 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals. This year I have also predicted the women's quarterfinals.

Novak Djokovic (SRB) [1] vs Feliciano Lopez (ESP) [19] Rafael Nadal (ESP) [8]. It was expected that the World #1 would have to face a Spanish lefty in this quarterfinal, but Feliciano Lopez was not the Spanish lefty that the draw would have indicated would have made it this far. Thanks to a career-best performance by Fabio Fognini on Friday night, the 14-time major champion Rafael Nadal was bounced from the last major tournament of the year. However, as is often the case, Fognini could not recover from such a huge win in time to build on it, and instead went down in straight sets (blowing a 4-1 lead in the 2nd set) two days later to Lopez. Although Lopez was the initial beneficiary of Fognini's upset of Nadal, ultimately it will almost certainly accrue to Djokovic's benefit, because he is playing someone whom he has never lost to in 5 meetings (although they have not faced each other since 2012 but even so, Djokovic leads the set count 11-1). Lopez gets some great pop on his serve and is a good volleyer, but his backhand side is simply not a Top 20 shot and Djokovic is talented enough to direct many, many shots to that wing to make this match up a mismatch. This is Djokovic's 26th consecutive major quarterfinal, a positively Federian statistic. A win here will let Djokovic reach his 8th consecutive U.S. Open semifinal, which, somewhat bizarrely, he has only won once (in 2011, when he also won the Australian and Wimbledon) Mad Professah's pick: Djokovic.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) [19] Kei Nishikori (JPN) [4] vs Marin Cilic (CRO) [9].  This quarterfinal was predicted to be a reprise of last year's major final, with the defending champion attempting to get revenge for the defeat he had against Nishikori at the Citi open in Washington. However, despite winning the U.S. open final, Cilic is 3-6 career against Nishikori lifetime so he actually caught a big break when Nishikori was bounced out of the tournament by his Frenchman Benoit Paire, who  is the person Tsonga eliminated in straight sets to reach this quarterfinal. Tsonga has been playing excellent, efficient tennis through four rounds: he has not had his service broken in the 12 sets he has played and won so far. Cilic on the other hand has lost three sets in his last two rounds, although he has been winning the decisive set each time by a dominating margin. Somewhat surprisingly, Cilic has a distinct advantage in their career head-to-head and is currently sporting a 4-1 lead.  However, Tsonga dominated their first two earlier meetings on the challenger tour and their hard court matches have always been close. This should be a cracker of a match. I definitely believe Tsonga has the weapons to beat anyone on the day that all his weapons are working at maximum effect. If he does so, he will reach his seventh career semifinal (his first at the U.S. Open--Cilic only has one career semifinal, but then he went on to win the tournament). Mad Professah's pick: Tsonga.

Stan Wawrinka (SUI) [5] vs Andy Murray (GBR) [3] Kevin Anderson (RSA) [15]. The tall South African player has been getting closer and closer to his first major quarterfinal, despite having lost seven previous 4th round matches at majors, including at Wimbledon this year where he led the defending champion Noval Djokovic 2-sets-to-0 up and was at 5-all in the 5th set before succumbing to the eventual tournament winner. It must have seemed like deja-vu when Anderson won the first two sets against Andy Murray on Monday evening but despite Murray winning a 3rd set tiebreak, he could not win a 4th set tiebreaker, and thus his string of 18 major quarterfinal appearances ended in a dramatic 7-6(5) 6-3 6-7(2) 7-6(0) that lasted well more than four hours. and delighted and entertained the capacity-plus crowd on Louis Armstrong stadium (including  yours truly!) Thus Anderson will play 2-time major champion Stan Wawrinka, who dismissed American lefty Donald Young in four sets. Could Anderson's breakthrough against Murray duplicate Marin Cilic's breakthrough last year? Cilic had never beaten Gilles Simon in 5 meetings and won a tough 5-setter against the French player and used that confidence to win his first major title, beating two Top 5 players along the way. Anderson actually has a 4-3 head-to-head edge against Wawrinka, and has won the last 4 matches he played against him, including at Queen's Club, just a few months ago. However, the two have never played in a major (best-of-five set match) before. You have to believe that Anderson must believe that he can beat just about anyone at this point, considering his recent results, and this is a winnable match for him. I think that pressure may get to him, and I suspect Wawrinka will use his experience in these situations to pull through. Mad Professah's pick: Wawrinka.

Roger Federer (SUI) [2] vs Tomas Berdych (CZE) [6] Richard Gasquet (FRA) [12].  Amazingly, in both men's matches I managed to be in the audience for on Labor Day there were surprising upsets (where the  lower seed one). Gasquet has been playing excellent tennis all summer, as his Wimbledon semifinal indicates, but I doubt very many people thought that the Frenchman would get past the tall Ccech player despite their even head-to-head at 6-all. Because, the Murray match was so long and it's conclusion coincided with the beginning of the Federer match, Louis Armstrong was deserted b the crowd and barely a few hundred hard-core fans (like yours truly!) stuck around to watch this important match. Happily, this meant I was able to view the match from courtside! Gasquet's backhand and movement is very impressive but what won him this match was his impeccable serving. After blowing the first set, Gasquet dominated the next 3, winning 2-6 6-3 6-4 6-1. This is great news for Federer, because he is 14-6 against Berdych but 14-2 against Gasquet. Gasquet has only been in two major semifinals in his career, while Federer has been in a record 37 (6 more than Jimmy Connors previous record) and he is clearly not finished breaking records, especially here in New York. Mad Professah's pick: Federer.

2015 US OPEN: Women's Quarterfinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the women's quarterfinals at the US Open for 2015. Last year I correctly predicted 2 of 4 women's quarterfinals and correctly predicted 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals.

Serena Williams (USA) [1] vs Venus Williams (USA) [23]. The most incredible story in tennis, and possibly in the entirety of women's sports, enters its fifteenth year as these two African-American siblings continue to battle near the pinnacle of the game that they have devoted their professional sports lives to. This meeting will be their 27th (Serena leads their overall head-to-head 15-11) and it is on the 14th anniversary of the first time the two played in grand slam final (when Venus won the 2001 U.S. Open). This is the second consecutive major tournament where they have  had to face each other. Serena won their 4th round meeting at Wimbledon this year relatively easily in two decisive sets, but lost their previous meeting in the semifinals of the Canadian tournament last year. (Serena leads 8-5 in major tournament play.) Although Venus has been playing extremely well (especially considering her 23 seeding, it would be a surprise if she could make this match even competitive. There's no question that she is the person on earth who knows Serena's game the most but will that experience actually improve her chances of dashing her sister's hopes for tennis immortality? This will probably be Serena's most emotionally tough match of the fortnight, but she should be a lock to reach her 5 consecutive major final and actually play for the possibility of the calendar grand slam, something Martina Navratilova did as well (she lost that match to Hana Mandlikova in 1985). PREDICTION: Serena.

Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) Ekaterina Makarova (RUS) [13] vs Roberta Vinci (ITA) [16]. This is the accidental quarterfinal. Kiki did well to upset the solid #13 seed Makarova in the previous round and Vinci is here (again!) because Eugenie Bouchard got a concussion after her Friday match and had to default her fourth round match against the Italian. I'll put my money on the Frenchwoman to get through but noone from this quarter is going to be playing in the final on Saturday night. PREDICTION: Mladenovic.

Petra Kvitova (CZE) [5] vs Samantha Stosur (AUS) [22] Flavia Pennetta (ITA) [26].  For some reason the Italian plays her best tennis in New York; she's reached five of her six major quarterfinals at the U.S. open, leading to her 2013 semifinal appearance. Kvitova has never played her best tennis in New York, but she has won the New Haven tournament  (played the week before the last major of the year) for three consecutive years. This is her first major quarterfinal in New York, completing her career set. With her power it is hard to see why she has not had more success on the hard courts in North America but perhaps all that changes this year. Kvitova should be the overwhelming favorite but Pennetta is feisty and fearless and she should find a way to pose the Czech lefty some serious questions. PREDICTION: Kvitova. 

Victoria Azarenka (BLR) [20] vs. Simona Halep (ROU) [2]. The top half of the draw is dominated by the Williams sisters, with an almost certainty being that one of them will be in the final on Saturday. In the bottom half of the draw any one of the four remaining players is a legitimate major finalist and two of them are multiple slam winners (Azarenka and Kvitova). Azarenka plays her best tennis on hard courts while Halep is clearly excellent on all surfaces--there's a reason she is clearly the #2 player in the world behind Serena. However, the player who people feel is Serena's most serious challenger (the one who has the most belief, and who held a match point against her earlier this year in Spain) is the former World #1 Belarussian. This match should actually be the most high quality match of the four and is the most difficult to predict. Azarenka is 2-0 against Halep but hasn't played her since 2012, when Halep simply was not the player she is today (and Azarenka was a better player than she is today). I think Halep will show how much she has improved, and demonstrate how much more Azarenka has to do to get back to the top of the women's game, but it won't be easy. PREDICTION: Halep. 

2015 US OPEN: Order of Play For Labor Day Visit (Halep, Murray, Berdych, Kvitova, Federer)

Well, I have a ticket for Louis Armstrong and a grounds pass so these are matches I will be able to see today. I'll try and do more updates today but I doubt I'll have as good seats today as I did yesterday, when I was courtside on Grandstand!

EYE CANDY: Pablo Hernandez (3rd Time!)

Pablo Hernandez has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram (@pablohernandeofficial) and is also active on Tumblr and Twitter. His pictures have appeared twice before here as Eye Candy (March 17, 2014 and October 8, 2012). Although there are not many models who have appeared more than three times here at MadProfessah.com I suspect that this will not be the last time we see Mr. Hernandez here!

2015 US OPEN: African-American Lefty Mixed Duo Townsend and Young

They lost this second round match to the excellent doubles team of Kubot/Hlackova who had taken out the #1 seeds in the first round.

I was in the first row on Grandstand!

2015 US OPEN: Order of Play For Today's In-Person Viewing!

The order of play for Sunday September 6th at the U.S. Open shows that there are some interesting and exciting matches on tap for me to see while I'm there. Unfortunately, most of them are in the behemoth that is Arthur Ashe Stadium. I just have a grounds pass today, but I couldn't afford a seat i Ashe that would let me view the play from the vantage point that would seem reasonable. But I'll still have fun watching those matches on the big screen On Grandstand there's the intriguing mixed doubles duo of Taylor Townsend and Donald Young at 130pm that I will check out before  the Venus match (I have never even heard of Anna Kontaveit, have you??) and the Serena-Madison match and then that's basically it for singles matches. I'm hoping for no upsets!

I'll try and post some updates about how the day is going either here or on Twitter later!

2015 US OPEN: Fognini Upsets Nadal In Late Night Thriller!

I just arrived in NYC to attend the 2015 U.S. Open so I did not have time to blog about the huge surprise result that happened last night. Fabio Fognini beat Rafael Nadal for the third time this year, but this time was definitely not a charming experience for the 14-time major champ! It was the first time in a major tournament that Nadal had won the first two sets and not won the match (150-0).

Nadal was up two sets and a break before somehow Fognini turned the match around. (I saw the first set and a half and then went to pack and get ready for bed last night). Somehow the Italian leveled the match at 2-sets all (3-6 4-6 6-6 6-3) and then broke first to up 2-1 in the fifth set. Then there were an incredible SIX consecutive breaks of serve in a row, with Fognini finally holding at 5-4 to win the match well after 1am in New York City (I was long asleep--I turned off the coverage after Nadal broke back to even the match at 4-all.)

The amazing thing about this match is that Fognini won it, Nadal didn't lose it. The Italian hit 70 winners (to 57 unforced errors), more than twice Nadal's 30 winners (to only 18 unforced errors).
The loss means that for the first time since 2004 Nadal will not win a major. This was basically guaranteed when he did not win the French Open this year (only the second time in 11 years that has happened). So Nadal's streak of 10 consecutive years of major titles (2005-2014) surpasses Federer's streak of major titles from 2003-2010. (It should be noted, that in Federer's worst year, 2013, he at least reached a semifinal and a quarterfinal and he has reached finals in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015--winning only once.) The $80 million question is, now that he has stopped winning majors regularly, will Nadal come back to challenge and win another? (I think the answer is yes he will get to multiple finals, I'm not completely sure he will win multiple majors, however.)

Nadal has slipped to World #8 in the ATP rankings and his best Grand Slam results this year are Quarterfinals in Australia (l. Tomas Berdych) and Roland Garros (l. Novak Djokovic) with 2nd round losses at Wimbledon (l. Dustin Brown) and and now a 3rd round loss to Fognini at the U.S. Open.

Federer easily won his 3rd round match and still has not lost a set. He faces John Isner in the fourth round on Monday and I'll be there to see it!

FILM REVIEW: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

The other half and I have been mostly M.I.A. regarding Hollywood's summer blockbusters (We have seen Inside Out and Jurassic World and that's about it). Actually, we haven't done a very good job of watching movies in the theater this year. This is primarily because we've grown increasingly picky about only seeing movies in the theater that have rottentomatoes ratings over 90%. However, one of the movies we did shlep out to the Edward's Renaissance 14 in Alhambra to see was Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation. It got such excellent reviews (90% from audience reviews and 93% from critics) that we felt we should definitely check it out. (It should be noted that just because a movie does got excellent reviews doesn't mean that we will go see it. After all, Mad Max: Fury Road had a 97% rating from critics and 88% from the audience but we received word-of-mouth reviews from friends who had seen the film that ultimately influenced us not to see it in the theater.)

Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation opens with an incredible sequence where apparently Tom Cruise did his own stunt while holding on to the outside of a huge cargo plane while it took off. It's quite an astonishing sight to see one of the most famous people in the world and the star of the film clearly risking his life to make the film even more compelling.

As usual for most of these films, the plot itself is basically irrelevant. The enjoyment of the film is in its clever execution of multiple "impossible" sequence one after the other, with some leavening of humor expertly applied by Simon Pegg (Star Trek Into Darkness, Shawn of the Dead). Other standouts in the cast are Rebecca Ferguson as the enigmatic Ilsa Faust, who aligns herself with Cruise's Evan Hunt and claims that she is a double agent, but is she possibly a triple agent?

Overall, the film is a fun diversion and well worth the time and money spent to enjoy it in the theaters.


Title: Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation.
Director: Christopher McQuarrie.
Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.
Release Date: July 31, 2015.
Viewing Date: August 23, 2015.

Writing: B.
Acting: B.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B-.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Famous Neuroscientist Oliver Sacks Was Gay!

Noted neuroscientist Oliver Sacks died last weekend at age 82. I was unaware, and I suspect many of my readers are also, that Dr. Sacks was (sorta openly) gay. Thanks to my local NPR station (KPCC 89.3 FM) I learned not only that Dr. Sacks was gay but that as a young medical resident he spent a fair amount of time in Southern California, including at famed Muscle Beach in Venice, CA where he was known as "Dr. Squat" because he could squat lift 575 pounds!

Apparently he was very conflicted about his sexuality, as this excerpt indicates:

He had here his early struggles with his gay identity — he was celibate from his 30s until he was 75, when he met the love of his life, to whom he dedicated his last book — along with ensuing, difficult relationships. He got into a couple of biker brawls. He had a mad drive to prove himself as a body surfer in Venice (where he dislocated a shoulder and broke a few ribs) and a Muscle Beach muscle man.

His last book was published this year and titled On The Move. In it he mentions more details about his love life, including the name of his lover, Bill Hayes.

The picture at the top of this post show Sacks in 1961 (at age 28) and then later on years later. He apparently loved motorcyles his entire life as well.

BOOK REVIEW: Time Salvager by Wesley Chu

Wesley Chu is probably best known as the author of the well-regarded Lives of Tao trilogy. I only discovered this series earlier this year but devoured them quite quickly and enjoyed them a lot. One of the nice things   about discovering the series in 2015 as that all three books of the series were out and available to read, with the final book, The Rebirths of Tao coming out in 2015.

Amazingly, Chu has published not one but two books this year. This second book is Time Salvager, which is the first book in a new trilogy. The Tao trilogy is an action-packed speculative fiction (with YA tinges) set in a near-future where two groups (the Genjix and the Prophus) of human-alien symbionts called Quasings are engaged in a violent, no-holds barred battle against each other for control of planet Earth. Time Salvager is very different; it is still science fiction but this book is a dystopian, time-travel thriller.

Time Salvager is primarily the story of James Griffin-Mars, a chronman, i.e. someone who is doing important work to serve humanity by risking his physical and mental health by repeatedly going back in time and grabbing energy sources and materiel that a war-weary and technologically-static Solar System needs to survive. The other main character is Elise Kim, a 21st century biologist who was in charge of a United Nation-sponsored project to investigate and potentially resolve a curious algae bloom which is starting to devastate Earth's oceans.,

The dystopian setting for Time Salvager  Chu has dreamed up here is quite compelling (and very depressing). Basically, in the future humanity has lost the ability to innovate and produce enough energy and resources to support itself so the accepted plan for survival basically involves cannibalizing the past in order to support the future. And for most of humanity on various outposts in the solar system (and particularly on Earth) life is grim. The back story for how things got to be so bad by the 26th century would make an excellent prequel. We get bits and pieces of that story (various references to wars and global disaster) as the primary plot involving James and Elise develops in this book.

Chronmen by training and selection are borderline personalities and James bears this out. He repeatedly hallucinates and is wracked with guilty dreams. Elise is from 2097 (still hundreds of years in the past from James' present) and has a fresh (and horrified) perspective on the dystopian hell that Earth has become. (The world's oceans have LITERALLY gone to sh*t and many, many of the world's metropolises have been destroyed by war, disaster or human strife.)

 Besides the setting, the other aspect of the book that I found most compelling was Grace Priestly, the inventor of time travel. She is depicted as a feisty old (and lascivious) biddy. Another strength of the book was the villains. There are many evil corporations and their evil minions are doing Very Bad Things. As he demonstrated previously in the Tao books and again here, Chu is excellent at writing bad guys. He's also quite good at writing people who are working with the bad guys but realize at some point they are on the wrong team, so they are at least nuanced in their "badness." You want to hate them but then they do something surprising so you aren't so sure.

There are aspects of  Time Salvager  that I really did not like, the most notable of these is the inclusion and depiction of the Efren, the tribe of people that Elise and James run into in the ruins of Boston. I don't know why but none of those scenes worked for me whatsoever. It just seemed very patronizing that Elise shows up and can convince the Efren that she can save the planet. Why would they believe her? And why would James? I understand that for plot purposes we need to give Elise a mission to accomplish in the future and a way for James to get over his social maladaptiveness but The Efren subplot really didn't work for me at all. I almost found it borderline offensive, in fact, because basically they are treated as noble savages.

Anyway, another aspect of the book that I really liked a lot was the internal conflict depicted in the time-travel organization and I liked the action/fighting scenes. (Chu is also quite good at writing hand-to-hand combat and other fight/action sequences.) No wonder he won the 2015 John W. Campbell award!

Overall, Time Salvager is a pretty fun book, with some thought-provoking depictions of a dystopian, corporate-dominated future for Mankind, populated by characters that you will probably have strong feelings about (both positively and negatively).

Title: Time Salvager.
Author: Wesley Chu.
Paperback: 384 pages.
Publisher: Tor.
Date Published: July 7, 2015.
Date Read: July 12, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.50/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Rogue Kentucky County Clerk Demonstrating Necessity Of Church-State Separation

In case one needed more evidence of why the separation of church-state is so important, the ongoing saga of  Kim Davis (the rogue Rowan County, Kentucky clerk) who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses despite exhausting all her possible legal avenues. (The United States Supreme Court denied her request for a stay on an order from a federal district court judge to issues marriage licenses on Monday night.)

On Tuesday, Davis responded to a question asking what authority she was using to continue denying marriage licenses to duly qualified married couples by saying "God's authority."

Davis and her Deputy Clerks have been ordered to appear in court on Thursday to explain to federal judge David Bunning why she should not be sanctioned (held on contempt of court) for not following his court order. Maybe this saga will be over soon and the proper relationship between church and state will be restored.

TENNIS TUESDAY: U.S. Open Draw Devastated By Exit Of 13 Seeded Players (10 Female, 3 Male)

The Women's Draw at the 2015 U.S. Open has been devastated by the loss of 10 seeds in the first two days: Maria Sharapova(3) (withdrew with injury before playing), Lucie Safarova(6), Ana Ivanovic(7), Karolina Pliskova(8), Carla Suarez Navarro(10), Timea Bascinsky(14), Jelena Jankovic(21), Alize Cornet(27), Irina-Camelia Begu(28), Sloane Stephens(29) and Svetlana Kuznetsova(30)!

On the men's side there have only been three upsets: Kei Nishikori(4) by Benoit Paire of France, Gael Monfils(16) (forced to retire due to an injury) and Gilles Simon(11) by American Donald Young (coming back from 2-6 4-6 0-3 to win in 5 sets!)

2015 US OPEN Day 1: Seeds Fall Like Rain! Nishikori(4), Ivanovic(7), Pliskova(8), CSN (10) Are Out!

Wowsa! After one day my U.S. Open bracket is already busted! (You can see my WTA and ATP picks here and here.)  THREE Top 10 seeds (all in 3-time defending champion Serena Williams half of the draw) fell in the first round. And this was after the news came late last night that #3 seed Maria Sharapova (also in Serena's half) was withdrawing from the tournament with a leg injury! Ana Ivanovic(7), Karolina Pliskova(8), Carla Suarez Navarro(10) all fell to lower ranked opponents, thus clearing the path for Serena to win her 7th major title. Other notable losses were Sloane Stephens (losing to fellow American Coco Vandeweghe), 2-time major champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and former World #1 Jelena Jankovic. Venus Williams barely escaped being included in the carnage when she blew two match points in the 3nd set tiebreaker but thanks to an early break in the 3rd set, she was able to keep her nose in front and get a 6-4 6-7(7) 6-3 win over Monica Puig.

The biggest upset was on the men's side with #4 seed (and 2014 US Open finalist) Kei Nishikori falling to talented Frenchman Benoit Paire after failing to win two match points in the 4th set and then losing a tight 5th set. The other finalist, defending champion Marin Cilic won his first round match rather easily, and World #1 Novak Djokovic put on a frightening display by dispatching Joao Sousa of Brasil in 71 minutes while losing only 3 games in the process.

Mathematical Analysis of Women's Tennis Open-Era Challenges Serena's GOAT Status

On the eve of the start of her campaign to secure her 22nd major title, fourth of the year, Serena Williams's claim to the title of Greatest of all Time is being analyzed in an article at Five Thirty Eight titled "Serena Williams And The Difference Between All-Time Great And Greatest Of All Time." The article uses a particular mathematical technique called computing an ELO rating to assign a number (which varies over time) to the relative strength of players in head-to-head competition. The graph of all the major champions (Navratilova, Evert, Graf, Seles, Henin, Venus and Serena) are depicted.

From the graph it can be shown that Serena does not achieve the highest ELO rating of all time.

Elo definitely puts Williams in the top tier of female tennis players, but it tells a slightly more muted story than other measures. In particular: While Williams has been great, and has been doing unprecedented things for a player of her age, the relative weakness of the tier of players beneath her undermines her GOAT claim. 

The possibility that Serena has benefited from “weaker competition” is pretty conventional, and certainly debatable, but Elo gives us a useful way to examine exactly what that possibility means and what it implies.
For the unfamiliar, Elo is a rating method originally developed for chess, but eminently suitable for tennis. It’s very simple: Two players enter a match with Elo ratings based on their prior results. Elo uses their ratings to predict their head-to-head outcome, and then updates those ratings depending on the outcome.² It’s not without limitations: Elo makes every head-to-head prediction based solely on the two players’ ratings, which, in turn, are only affected by previous match results.

However, one aspect of Serena which makes her career unique is her 2nd peak in her ELO rating, which has happened at an unprecedented stage of her career, in her 30s. It also claims that Serena was at her best in 2003 (when she won her first Serena slam).

I understand that these results will disappoint some and encourage others but I appreciate the analysis in that bring at least a measure of quantitative rigor to a discussion which is essentially Qualitiative and subject in nature: Who is the Greatest of all Time? In my mind, the figures STILL indicate hat the answer is Serena Williams.

EYE CANDY: Michael Thurston

Michael Thurston is an amazing fitness model I just discovered recently. He is popular on Instagram (175,000+ followers at @mikethurston), Facebook (30,000 likes at mikethurstonofficial and Twitter (15,000 followers @TheThurstonator). According to multiple interview online, he is currently around 24 years old, weighs 198 pounds and is 6-feet tall.

In addition to his amazing physique and stunning good looks, Mr. Thurston has his own company, Aurora Athletic, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England.

Hawt is hawt!

2015 US OPEN: Men's and Women's Draw Analysed

The last major tennis tournament of the year starts on Monday August 31. I'll be at the U.S. Open next weekend (Sunday and Monday) to watch the tennis live and maybe run into Serena Williams on her quest to win the first calendar slam since 1988. The draw was released on Thursday and in this post I will analyze the highlights.

Men's Draw
The potential men's quarterfinal match ups are:

Novak Djokovic (1) versus Rafael Nadal (8) or Milos Raonic (10)
Kei Nishikori (4) versus David Ferrer (7) or Marin Cilic (9)
Andy Murray (3)  versus Stan Wawrinka (5)
Roger Federer (2) versus Tomas Berdych (6)

There are basically three main contenders to win the title (Djokovic, Federer and Murray) and although he has Murray and Wawrinka in his half Federer generally has a pretty gentle draw in the early going while Djokovic has both 2014 finalists in his half, although he will likely only have to face one of them (in the semifinals). If Federer and Djokovic do make the final, I like Federer's chances to win his record 18th major.

Women's Draw
The potential women's quarterfinal match ups are:

Serena Williams (1) versus Karolina Pliskova (8) or Venus Williams (23)
Maria Sharapova (3) or Ekaterina Makarova (13) versus Ana Ivanovic (7)
Petra Kvitova (5) or Garbine Muguruza (9) versus Carolina Wozniacki (4)
Simona Halep (2) versus Lucie Safarova (6) or Angelique Kerber (11)

The entire tournament is revolving around whether Serena can win her record 7th U.S. Open (4th in a row) and clinch the calendar Grand Slam. She does have a pretty rough draw, potentially facing Sloane Stephens (or Coco Vandweghe) in the 3rd round, Madison Keys (or Aga Radwanska) in the 4th round and her sister Venus or Karolina Pliskova in the quarters, Sharapova, Makarova or Ivanovic in the semifinals and Halep, Safarova, Kvitova, Kerber or Muguruza in the final! Despite all that, O am fairly confident she will get through. The danger is in those 3rd and 4th round matches versus the young Americans. If she gets past those, I'm very certain she won't crack later in the tournament. And if not, she can always go for Steffi Graf's 22-major record in 2016!

First Round Matches To Watch
Dominika Cibulkova vs Ana Ivanovic
Coco VandeWedghe vs Sloane Stephens
Andy Murray vs Nick Kyrgios
Fernando Verdasco vs Tommy Haas
Jarkko Nieminen vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga