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Nick Kyrgios tennis rages spark debate while Andy Murray gets sword action

Luka Alario
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Nick Kyrgios tennis rages spark debate while Andy Murray gets sword action

Sports can bring out the worse in some people, and Nick Kyrgios is no different, but his outbursts are becoming more frequent. So frequent, in fact, that they are starting to spark debate among the players.

Nick Kyrgios’ latest outburst of unruly behavior has other players split on whether the temperamental Australian should be handed a long-term ban.

Kyrgios walked off the court and threw a chair onto the red clay during a fit of rage during his second-round match at the Italian Open on Thursday, leading to him being defaulted and fined.

His opponent, Norwegian qualifier Casper Ruud, said that wasn’t enough and called for Kyrgios to be banned for six months or longer.

Roger Federer, though, thinks Kyrgios has already been given an appropriate punishment.

“I don’t think he should be suspended,” Federer said. “He walked off the court. What did he do? He hurt a chair? That’s not enough for me. I don’t know if he’s on probation or not from his Shanghai thing. If that’s the case, then obviously you can maybe look into it. If that’s run its course, I don’t think he should be suspended.”

Kyrgios was already suspended by the ATP Tour in 2016 for “tanking” a match and insulting fans during a loss at the Shanghai Masters.

The latest incident occurred on an outer court at the Foro Italico, with Kyrgios losing 6-3, 6-7 (5), 2-1 against Ruud.

First, Kyrgios slammed his racket to the clay and kicked a water bottle. Then he picked up a white chair and flung it onto the court with his right hand.

The men’s tour said Kyrgios will lose his 33,635 euros ($37,500) in prize money from the tournament and 45 ATP points.

Kyrgios was also fined 20,000 Euros for the three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties he received during the match and must cover the cost of his hospitality during the tournament, the ATP said.

“A zero pointer, fine, all this stuff is already tough enough,” Federer added. “He knows it’s a mistake what happened.”

Ruud said many players were debating how long Kyrgios should be suspended for.

“It doesn’t seem like anything makes him change these days,” Ruud said. “The ATP should do something. … I’m not the only one who thinks he should be suspended for at least half a year.”

Before leaving the court, Kyrgios shook hands with Ruud and the chair umpire.

“Very eventful day to say the least,” Kyrgios wrote on Instagram. “Emotions got the better of me and I just wanted to say that the atmosphere was crazy out there today, just super unfortunate that it had to end in a default. Sorry Roma, see you again, maybe.”

Before he was defaulted, Kyrgios received a warning for ball abuse, then was docked a point for unsportsmanlike conduct and lost a game for more unsportsmanlike conduct.

“He was getting angry that some guy was walking in between his first and second serve,” Ruud said. “Then he was getting more and more angry. … He does whatever he feels like doing. I think he got what he deserved.”

In 2015, Kyrgios insulted Stan Wawrinka with crude remarks during a match in Montreal. He was fined $12,500 and given a suspended 28-day ban. He also attracted criticism for deciding not to play at the Olympics because of a spat with an Australian team official, and for firing back at retired players who have offered advice.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who is president of the ATP player council, said he had “no opinion” on whether Kyrgios should be suspended.

“I’ll let others, officials, decide that,” Djokovic said.

federer nadal djokovic rain push sharapova out italian men notice 2019 images

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic Reach Quarterfinals

Also Thursday, Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic each won twice to reach the quarterfinals after a rainout on Wednesday backed up play.

Federer beat Joao Sousa 6-4, 6-3, then he saved two match points as he rallied past Borna Coric 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7).

Eight-time Rome champion Nadal cruised past Jeremy Chardy 6-0, 6-1 then quickly dispatched Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-1, 6-0.

Djokovic eliminated Denis Shapovalov 6-1, 6-3 and rolled past Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-0.

Naomi Osaka also won twice to hold on to the No. 1 ranking.

Against Federer, Coric missed forehands into the net on both of his match points in the tiebreaker. Federer converted his second match point when he forced Coric to hit a difficult, low volley into the net.

The 22-year-old Coric was playing his only match of the day and appeared fresher than the 37-year-old Federer at times. Coric won more points than Federer — 107-95 — but Federer, the 20-time Grand Slam champion, won when it counted.

“It’s nice to get lucky sometimes,” Federer said. “The atmosphere was fantastic. People were going crazy. … I gave him a chance to win it and he didn’t so I took it at the end.”

After getting stretched out wide to the doubles alley, Federer produced a forehand cross-court winner as he broke for a 4-2 lead in the second set.

Federer will next face either local hope Fabio Fognini or Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco spent nearly five hours on court over six sets to get by Dominic Thiem and Karen Khachanov and reach the last eight.

Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova rallied past Simona Halep 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 for her second win over the Romanian this year.

Halep, who was a finalist in Rome the last two years and is preparing to defend her French Open title, took a medical timeout early in the third set and received treatment on her left leg.

andy murray gets knights from prince charles

“It’s just a little injury, which in a few days is going to be OK,” Halep said. “I’m sure.”

Andy Murray Feels Prince Williams’ Sword

Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray received his knighthood from Prince Charles on Thursday, more than two years after he was awarded the honor by Queen Elizabeth II.

Murray was dubbed by the Prince of Wales during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, in recognition of his services to tennis and charity.

The knighthood was announced in the queen’s 2016 New Year Honors list after a year in which he won a second Wimbledon title, retained his Olympic singles crown and finished the season as No. 1 in the rankings.

Recipients are allowed to choose when to collect their honor, and the delay was due to a combination of Murray’s hectic schedule and the effect of the knighthood ceremony on his career-threatening hip problem.

Murray announced during a tearful news conference at the Australian Open in January that he plans to retire after Wimbledon this year due to the pain in the joint.

Murray, who turned 32 on Wednesday, has since had a hip resurfacing operation and it’s still unclear whether he can play at this year’s Wimbledon.

After Thursday’s ceremony, Murray issued a statement saying: “I’m very proud to receive it. It’s a nice day to spend with my family — my wife and parents are here. I’d have liked to (have brought) my kids but I think they’re a bit young. I’ll show them the medal when I get home.”

Murray and his wife Kim are parents of 3-year-old Sophia Olivia and 18-month-old Edie.

The Scot won his first Wimbledon title in 2013, ending Britain’s 77-year wait for a male singles champion at the grass-court Grand Slam.

‘Big Bang Theory’ cast talk finale and moving on

George Cando
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‘Big Bang Theory’ cast talk finale and moving on

“The Big Bang Theory” may be ending on Thursday, but it still has one footprint left behind with “Young Sheldon.” Since airing in 2007, the show has always ranked as one of the top-rated shows on CBS and Jim Parsons, who portrays the funny but loveable Sheldon Cooper, has won four Emmy’s.

Now that “The Big Bang Theory” is ending after 12 seasons, viewers will still have re-runs to comfort themselves with. The cast has those — and some red hot residuals— but not the reassuring workplace rhythm and camaraderie.

During the closing days of taping the hour-long finale that airs at 8 p.m EDT Thursday on CBS, stars Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Mayim Bialik, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar and Melissa Rauch talked about their experiences on the top-rated comedy, and about what they’ll do next.

big bang theory series over 2019

HOW MANY TISSUES?

Cuoco: There’s a lot of emotions going on, very bittersweet. It’s very strange that a lot of people are coming up to me saying, “How are you?” like someone died.

Parsons: It’s a real rite of passage moment in your life. And much like more “normal rites of passage,” be it a bar mitzvah or a wedding or a graduation, there is a feeling of accomplishment. And like those events people also tend to cry, even if they are happy and they know that this was organic and the way life is supposed to go.

Nayyar: The thing I’m going to miss most is my banter with Simon, with everyone, the fact that we’ve gotten along so well. There’s not a lot of places you can go anymore that you feel safe just being yourself.

Rauch: I think it’s going to hit me around the time we normally come back after a hiatus. In August, when I’m gearing up because we’re coming back, I think it’s going to be, “Oh, I have a table read coming up,” and realizing that I don’t.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Parsons: I’m still very focused on continuing to seek out work as an actor almost exclusively. I’m not finding anything like writing or directing or anything else that’s overtly calling me. I’m just trying to keep moving and active as I can so that the right next thing will speak loudly when I see it.

Cuoco: For me, producing. I’d love to continue to work as an actor but I love the development process, and I just started dipping my toe into it a year ago. I enjoy putting pieces together.

Helberg: I picture myself growing a beard, and waking up at noon and sitting at the piano playing music, or trying to get into photography. Sounds kind of romantic. My favorite thing to do is act, so I’m going to do a play in the fall.

Nayyar: When we started “Big Bang,” there weren’t a lot of opportunities for South Asian actors. And now what’s happening you’re getting the best of both worlds (here) and in India. We make 900 movies a year in Bollywood. Now you have Netflix India, you have Amazon India. There are many beautiful, big novels that are being made for this cross-cultural platform, and they’re looking for talent and I hope I can help fill some of those roles.

Bialik: I have a couple of projects that I’m looking to produce for other women, and obviously the science space is somewhere that I live in always. But I think I’ve never been at a place in my career where I could have more of a voice.

Galecki: I really enjoy being more a part of the storytelling. I made the same mistake a lot of actors do, assuming that the process starts with your first day on set and ends with the wrap party. To be in the room when the seminal idea is hatched and nurtured through to the end is really exciting for me.

Rauch: My husband and I write together, and we have our production company here at Warner Bros. And also just spending time with my kiddo is a good thing to do.

‘BIG BANG,’ WHAT IT LEAVES BEHIND

Cuoco: We are in a very modern era where everything is streaming, everything is binge-watch. Our show is as classic as it gets. People still want to tune in and I like that idea of television. I like being able to talk about it all week and look forward to your favorite episode of a show. We don’t have that as much anymore.

Galecki: It’s a show all about relationships and that’s timeless. And I hope it will endure. I don’t see a time where 100 years from now that wouldn’t resonate or be relatable.

Bialik: If I were a young student at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and this show had existed, I would have loved the male characters as much as the female, because I think for a lot of women that kind of (science) interest is very genderless.

Rauch: That it’s inspired a lot of young girls to go into STEM is so exciting to me.

SERIES FINALE: WILL IT BE A BIG BANG OR A WHIMPER?

Bialik: We’re just hoping I don’t have to be pregnant.

Parsons: We’re obviously on this Nobel trajectory which is going to wrap. I feel like we might lose. We aren’t, at the end of the day, real people who could be listed in the history books on the Nobel. So do we want to go that way?

Cuoco: It should just end with all of us around the table eating Chinese food, like we always do. Simple as that. And I want them to fix the elevator. Or not fix it, but address it in some way.

Helberg: I don’t want anyone to die. That would be pretty definitive and not funny either, necessarily. Unless they fell down the elevator shaft, that would tie it all in.

Hate comes to ‘Game of Thrones:’ Kings Landing remake demand

Jackie Warner
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Hate comes to ‘Game of Thrones:’ Kings Landing remake demand

Winter is here. Kings Landing is now razed to the ground, and The Game of Thrones backlash has well and truly arrived. It has been a long time coming, and it does feel like it’s one season overdue.

With just one single 79-minute episode left in this historic series—perhaps the last TV show that will dominate culture in quite this monolithic way—the wall has been breached and the hate is marching through. The antipathy is top to bottom, from blue-chip critics tweet-storming their frustrations to Reddit denizens arguing endlessly over points of illogic to mega-producer Megan Ellison just going off to the meme-tariate doing their hilariously deadpan finger-wagging thing.

Jaime Lannister’s redemption arc was revealed to be a cheap joke at the audience’s expense in the penultimate episode, The Bells. Daenerys Targaryen was retrofitted as a destructive maniac. Not because that was where the previous 71 hours were leading but because it was where the short-term thinking of show-runners David Benioff and DB Weiss demanded she go. Oh and “Cleganebowl” – can we finally stop calling it that ?– had all the dramatic portent of a “Star Wars” prequel lightsaber battle. 

A petition by an angry fan demanding that HBO remake the final season of “Game of Thrones” has now been signed by more than 300,000 people.

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are the targets of the petition, which asserts that the pair, who have shepherded the HBO hit from the beginning, “have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on.” The show first moved beyond George R.R. Martin’s ongoing book series in the sixth season.

The online petition, which was started on Change.org by a user called Dylan D., is titled “Remake ‘Game of Thrones’ season 8 with competent writers” and states that fans of the smash-hit show deserve “a final season that makes sense.”

The petition was created following Monday’s episode, “The Bells,” which drew strong negative reactions from fans online over the actions of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Jamie Lannister. In its review of the episode, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper said the series had been “ruined beyond repair.”

The petition originally began with a target of 15,000 signatures, which was reached on Wednesday. A revised target of 300,000 was surpassed Thursday, and a newly revised target is now aiming at half a million signatures. By 8 a.m. ET, the petition had been signed by 340,000 “Game of Thrones” fans, with the number of signatories continuing to grow rapidly. Now that the list has hit over 500,000 the revised revised target is 1,000,000. HBO are you listening?

Fan reaction to the final season of the epic fantasy drama has been mixed, with complaints targeting everything from character treatment to the cinematography.

Jessica Chastain was among celebrities calling out the show for its use of the rape and torture endured in previous seasons by Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) as reasons for her strength and cunning. “Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger. A woman doesn’t need to be victimized in order to become a butterfly,” said Chastain on Twitter following the airing of Episode 4, “The Last of the Starks.”

The third episode, “The Long Night,” came under heavy criticism for its lighting, with viewers complaining that it was difficult to discern what was happening. Polygon entertainment reporter Karen Han tweeted that it was “visually incomprehensible.”

Fans also lit up social media after a mistake in Episode 4 saw a takeout coffee cup appear on a table in front of Emilia Clarke, which was later digitally removed for the streaming version.

game of thrones jaimie lannister hand grew back

The online backlash is unlikely to faze HBO, however, given the massive viewing figures the show continues to generate. “The Bells” scored the highest ratings in the show’s history, watched by 12.5 million viewers in the U.S. on its initial broadcast and by 18.4 million across all HBO platforms. Regardless of negative reactions to that episode, its numbers seem sure to be surpassed by the season (and show) finale, which airs May 20.

Earlier this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the next “Star Wars” movie, scheduled for release in December 2022, would be shepherded by Benioff and Weiss.

Dylan D., the petition’s creator, acknowledges how unlikely a successful outcome to his petition is with a final note that reads: “Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”

United States quiet on hate speech as Huawei gets Trumped

Jeffrey Lang
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United States quiet on hate speech as Huawei gets Trumped

President Donald Trump is proving that he’s more of a ‘pull outer’ than a joiner as the White House kept quiet about helping to stop hate speech from being spread on social media platforms. While Trump has no problem trying to silence speech he doesn’t like, this doesn’t seem to be one he wants to get involved with.

The White House chose not to endorse a global pledge to step up efforts to keep internet platforms from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast attacks, citing respect for “freedom of expression and freedom of the press.”

The statement came Wednesday after World leaders led by French President Emmanuel Macron and executives from Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies gathered in Paris to compile a set of guidelines dubbed the “Christchurch Call,” named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. Much of the attack was broadcast live on Facebook, drawing public outrage and fueling debate on how to better regulate social media. Facebook said before the meeting that it was tightening rules for livestream users.

In a statement, the White House said it will “continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online” while also protecting free speech.

The Christchurch Call “is a global response to a tragedy that occurred on the shores of my country but was ultimately felt around the world,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern, who has played a leading role pushing for globally coordinated efforts to eliminate online extremism.

“Fundamentally it ultimately commits us all to build a more humane internet, which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes,” she said at a joint news conference with Macron.

The French and New Zealand governments drafted the agreement — a roadmap that aims to prevent similar abuses of the internet while insisting that any actions must preserve “the principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The call was adopted by U.S. tech companies that also included Amazon, Microsoft and YouTube, along with France’s Qwant and DailyMotion, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Countries backing France and New Zealand were Britain, Canada, Ireland, Jordan, Norway, Senegal, Indonesia and the European Union’s executive body. Several other countries not present at the meeting added their endorsement.

The meeting in Paris comes at a pivotal moment for tech companies, which critics accuse of being too powerful and resistant to regulation. Some have called for giants like Facebook to be broken up. Europe is leading a global push for more regulation of how the companies handle user data and copyrighted material. The tech companies, meanwhile, are offering their own ideas in a bid to shape the policy response.

Unlike previous official attempts to regulate the internet, “the Christchurch Call is different in that it associates all actors of the internet” including the tech companies themselves, Macron said.

He said he hopes to get broader support for the agreement in coming months, with technical questions to be discussed by June.

In Wednesday’s agreement, which is not legally binding, the tech companies committed to measures to prevent the spread of terrorist or violent extremist content. That may include cooperating on developing technology or expanding the use of shared digital signatures.

They also promised to take measures to reduce the risk that such content is livestreamed, including flagging it up for real-time review.

And they pledged to study how algorithms sometimes promote extremist content. That would help find ways to intervene more quickly and redirect users to “credible positive alternatives or counter-narratives.”

Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter issued a joint supporting statement, outlining in further detail actions they would take individually or together to combat abuse of technology to spread extremist content. They include making it easier for users to flag up inappropriate content, using enhanced vetting for livestreaming and publishing transparency reports on material that’s removed.

Facebook, which dominates social media and has faced the harshest criticism for overlooking the misuse of consumer data and not blocking live broadcasts of violent actions, said separately it is toughening its livestreaming policies.

It’s tightening the rules for its livestreaming service with a “one strike” policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Activity on the social network that violates its policies, such as sharing an extremist group’s statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being temporarily blocked. The most serious offenses will result in a permanent ban.

Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses.

The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with preventing users from creating Facebook ads.

Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it’s investing $7.5 million to improve technology aimed at finding videos and photos that have been manipulated to avoid detection — a problem the company encountered with the Christchurch shooting, where the attacker streamed the killing live on Facebook.

“Tackling these threats also requires technical innovation to stay ahead of the type of adversarial media manipulation we saw after Christchurch,” Facebook’s vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, said in a blog post.

The Christchurch Call was drafted as 80 CEOs and executives from technology companies gathered in Paris for a “Tech for Good” conference meant to address how they can use their global influence for public good — for example by promoting gender equality, diversity in hiring and greater access to technology for lower income users.

Ardern and Macron have insisted that the Christchurch guidelines must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks.

Free speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can’t solve.

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while “a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms,” it is necessary to find a way to not censor legitimate discussion.

“It’s a hard line to draw sometimes,” he said.

donald trump executive order on huawei tech

Donald Trump Executive Order On Huawei

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday to help protect the United States against foreign adversaries that are taking advantage of technological vulnerabilities to threaten U.S. communications systems.

The order, which declared a national emergency in response to the threat, does not name specific countries or companies. But it appears to target Chinese tech giant Huawei, the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies. Huawei has long been seen as a front for spying by the Chinese military or security services, but the company has denied the allegations.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai applauded Trump’s executive order, saying it would safeguard the U.S. communications supply chain. “Given the threats presented by certain foreign companies’ equipment and services, this is a significant step toward securing America’s networks,” he said.

The Trump administration has been trying with only some success to persuade allied nations not to use Huawei equipment. Last year, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government from using equipment from Huawei and China’s ZTE Corp.

The U.S., which is embroiled in an escalating trade war with China, also has sounded warnings about Huawei’s efforts to expand into Europe. The U.S. worries that China could use Huawei gear to gain access to private, commercial or other information that could compromise NATO and allied intelligence operations.

Early this year, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, a top company executive and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated U.S. sanctions. The sweeping indictments accuse the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses — including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab.

The executive charged is Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. The U.S. is seeking to extradite her.

Cannes brings horror for Bill Murray while ‘Avengers: Endgame’ takes MTV noms

George Cando
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Cannes brings horror for Bill Murray while ‘Avengers: Endgame’ takes MTV noms

The 72nd Cannes Film Festival broke with tradition and made history letting zombies run the opening night ceremony with Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die.” This led many to discuss horror and what scares them the most. Even Bill Murray jumped in to say that Cannes was the most frightening.

The Jim Jarmusch zombie movie “The Dead Don’t Die” includes masses of flesh-eating zombies and an Earth thrown off its axis by “polar fracking.”

But the teeming Cannes Film Festival, where “The Dead Don’t Die” premiered Tuesday as the opening-night film, has hordes and horrors of its own. When asked what horror films he finds frightening, Bill Murray didn’t hesitate.

“I find Cannes frightening,” said Murray on Wednesday. When it was suggested that, at least, there hadn’t been any zombies on the Croisette, the festival’s main drag, so far, Murray replied, “Says you.”

“The Dead Don’t Die” did, in fact, bring zombies to Cannes. Staggering actors in full zombie makeup lined the entryway to the film’s after-party late Tuesday night shortly after Jarmusch’s latest — his ninth film in competition at Cannes — made its anticipated debut.

The film, which Focus Features will release in U.S. theaters on June 14, is Jarmusch’s George Romero-inspired take on the genre, both playfully postmodern (some characters are aware they’re in a movie) and pointedly political.

Murray plays the sheriff of a small town named Centerville where Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny also play police officers. When the planet stops rotating, night never comes and the dead begin roaming Centerville’s streets while still clinging to their old habits (seeking Wi-Fi, chardonnay and coffee). Townspeople include Tilda Swinton as a funeral parlor director, Tom Waits as a local hermit and Steve Buscemi as a farmer with a MAGA-like hat reading “Keep America White Again” and a dog named Rumsfeld.

Addressing reporters Wednesday, Jarmusch downplayed the movie’s political overtones. Ecological disaster, he said, isn’t a political issue.

“Defining this as a political issue is very confusing and perplexing to me. It’s not about politics. So politics is essentially not of interest to me,” said Jarmusch. “I don’t understand how it can even be considered as such. Politics doesn’t seem to save anything. Politics is a kind of distraction. And now the politics is controlled on the planet by its corporate politics so this for me is the problem.”

Critics responded to “The Dead Don’t Die” with mixed reviews. Variety called it “a disappointing trifle.” The Los Angeles Times said it’s a “bleak, bone-dry shrug of a horror-comedy.”

But it did bring one of the starriest premieres set to hit Cannes this year, including co-star Selena Gomez, who plays a teenager visiting Centerville. Jarmusch was drawn to her by her performance in Harmony Korine’s 2013 “Spring Breakers.” Jarmusch spoke highly of the 26-year-old pop star on Wednesday, calling her “incredibly admirable” for “encouraging young people to have their own will.”

While the ills of social media play only a minor role in “The Dead Don’t Die,” Gomez went further on Wednesday, saying Instagram, where she has more than 150 million followers, is “pretty impossible” to make safe at this point.

“I would say for my generation specifically social media has really been terrible,” Gomez said. “It does scare me when you see how exposed these young boys and young girls are. They are not aware of the news. I think it’s dangerous for sure. I don’t think people are getting the right information sometimes.”

“The Dead Don’t Die” is aimed squarely at satirizing crass materialism along with inaction and disinformation in the face of climate change. But Jarmusch said his film was already being interpreted beyond his intentions.

“The zombies as metaphor is so laden,” said Jarmusch. “Some of the things I read this morning about our film were things that honestly hadn’t occurred to me. I think the metaphor is stronger than I was analyzing or aware of.”

avengers endgame tops 2 billion at box office while uglydolls flatlines 2019 images

Avengers: Endgame Conquers MTV Nominations

“Avengers: Endgame,” ″Game of Thrones” and “RBG” are the top nominees heading into next month’s MTV Movie & TV Awards. “Endgame” received four nominations while “Game of Thrones” tied in TV.

The network announced Tuesday that the three titles each garnered four nominations for the awards show, which will air June 17. The show will also introduce new categories including reality royalty, most meme-able moment and best real-life hero.

“Endgame” will compete for best movie against “BlacKkKlansman,” ″Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” ″Us” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” The Marvel superhero film also earned nods for stars Robert Downey Jr. and Josh Brolin.

The Oscar-nominated “RBG,” which focused on the life of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is nominated for best documentary, most meme-able moment and inaugural real-life hero. The film will also face “Endgame” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” for best fight.

“Game of Thrones” is up for best show along with nominations for Maisie Williams and Emilia Clarke.

“Shazam” star Zachary Levi will host the show, which will be held in Santa Monica, California. The actor is also nominated for best hero and best comedic performance.

2019 mtv awards nominations avengers game of thrones rbg

Below is the full list of MTV Movie & TV Nominees:

Best Movie
“Avengers: Endgame”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”
“Us”

Best Show
“Big Mouth”
“Game of Thrones”
“Riverdale”
“Schitt’s Creek”
“The Haunting of Hill House”

Best Performance in a Movie
Amandla Stenberg (Starr Carter) – “The Hate U Give”
Lady Gaga (Ally) – “A Star is Born”
Lupita Nyong’o (Red) – “Us”
Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury) – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Sandra Bullock (Malorie) – “Bird Box”

Best Performance in a Show
Elisabeth Moss (June Osborne/Offred) – “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) – “Game of Thrones”
Gina Rodriguez (Jane Villanueva) – “Jane the Virgin”
Jason Mitchell (Brandon) – “The Chi”
Kiernan Shipka (Sabrina Spellman) – “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”

Best Hero
Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel) – “Captain Marvel”
John David Washington (Ron Stallworth) – “BlacKkKlansman”
Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) – “Game of Thrones”
Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) – “Avengers: Endgame”
Zachary Levi (Billy Batson/Shazam) – “Shazam!”

Best Villain
Jodie Comer (Villanelle) – “Killing Eve”
Joseph Fiennes (Commander Fred Waterford) – “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Josh Brolin (Thanos) – “Avengers: Endgame”
Lupita Nyong’o (Red) – “Us”
Penn Badgley (Joe Goldberg) – “You”

Best Kiss
Camila Mendes & Charles Melton (Veronica Lodge & Reggie Mantle) – “Riverdale”
Jason Momoa & Amber Heard (Aquaman & Mera) – “Aquaman”
Ncuti Gatwa & Connor Swindells (Eric Effiong & Adam Groff) – “Sex Education”
Noah Centineo & Lana Condor (Peter Kavinsky & Lara Jean) – “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”
Tom Hardy & Michelle Williams (Eddie Brock/Venom & Anne Weying) – “Venom”

Reality Royalty
“Jersey Shore: Family Vacation”
“Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta”
“The Bachelor”
“The Challenge”
“Vanderpump Rules”

Best Comedic Performance
Awkwafina (Peik Lin Goh) – “Crazy Rich Asians”
Dan Levy (David Rose) – “Schitt’s Creek”
John Mulaney (Andrew Glouberman) – “Big Mouth”
Marsai Martin (Little Jordan Sanders) – “Little”
Zachary Levi (Billy Batson/Shazam) – “Shazam!”

Breakthrough Performance
Awkwafina (Peik Lin Goh) – “Crazy Rich Asians”
Haley Lu Richardson (Stella) – “Five Feet Apart”
Mj Rodriguez (Blanca Rodriguez) – “Pose”
Ncuti Gatwa (Eric Effiong) – “Sex Education”
Noah Centineo (Peter Kavinsky) – “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”

Best Fight
“Avengers: Endgame” – Captain America vs. Thanos
“Captain Marvel” – Captain Marvel vs. Minn-Erva
“Game of Thrones” – Arya Stark vs. the White Walkers
“RBG” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg vs. Inequality
“WWE Wrestlemania” – Becky Lynch vs. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair

Best Real-Life Hero
Alex Honnold – “Free Solo”
Hannah Gadsby – “Nanette”
Roman Reigns – “WWE SmackDown”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg – “RBG”
Serena Williams – “Being Serena”

Most Frightened Performance
Alex Wolff (Peter) – “Hereditary”
Linda Cardellini (Anna Tate-Garcia) – “The Curse of La Llorona”
Rhian Rees (Dana Haines) – “Halloween”
Sandra Bullock (Malorie) – “Bird Box”
Victoria Pedretti (Nell Crain) – “The Haunting of Hill House”

Best Documentary
“At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal”
“McQueen”
“Minding the Gap”
“RBG”
“Surviving R. Kelly”

Best Host
Gayle King – “CBS This Morning”
Nick Cannon – “Wild ‘n Out”
Nick Cannon – “The Masked Singer”
RuPaul – “RuPaul’s Drag Race”
Trevor Noah – “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”

Most Meme-able Moment
“Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club” – The Lilo Dance
“Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood” – Ray J’s Hat
“RBG” – The Notorious RBG
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” – Asia O’Hara’s butterfly finale fail
“The Bachelor” – Colton Underwood jumps the fence

Federer, Nadal, Djokovic rain out, Sharapova out plus Italian tennis men on notice

Luka Alario
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Federer, Nadal, Djokovic rain out, Sharapova out plus Italian tennis men on notice

There was plenty of excitement that got washed out at the 2019 Italian Open when the holy trinity of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic had to postpone their matches.

Play at the Italian Open has been wiped out by rain, meaning Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic will have to wait until Thursday to play their opening matches at the clay-court tournament.

Federer was slated to meet Joao Sousa on Wednesday, eight-time Rome champion Nadal was scheduled to play Jeremy Chardy and Djokovic was up against Denis Shapovalov.

Also, top-ranked Naomi Osaka was to play Dominika Cibulkova.

But consistent rain at the Foro Italico wiped out the entire day and evening sessions.

Better weather is forecast for Thursday and Friday.

maria sharapova shoulder injury ends grand slam tournament

Shoulder Injury Ends Maria Sharapova Grand Slam

Two-time French Open champion Maria Sharapova pulled out of the year’s second Grand Slam tournament on Tuesday because of her surgically repaired right shoulder.

Sharapova announced her withdrawal on Instagram.

“Sometimes the right decisions aren’t always the easiest ones,” she wrote.

She said she has returned to practice and is “slowly building the strength back” in her shoulder.

The former No. 1 and owner of five major titles hasn’t competed anywhere since late January, when she withdrew from a tournament in Russia after winning her opening match there. In February, she said she had a “small procedure” on her shoulder, which was painful since last year because of a fraying tendon and small labrum tear.

During a recent interview at the Italian Open, International Tennis Hall of Fame member Nick Bollettieri said Sharapova is at his academy “right now, training.”

Asked whether Sharapova is contemplating retirement, the coach responded: “Not yet. I think she’s going to give it one more shot.”

Play begins at the French Open on May 26. The 32-year-old Sharapova won the title at Roland Garros in 2012 to complete a career Grand Slam and collected the trophy at the clay-court major again in 2014.

That was the last time she won a Grand Slam tournament.

Since then, the Russian has been only an occasional participant in the sport’s four most prestigious events: This French Open will mark the eighth time in a span of 20 majors that she has been absent.

Sharapova was sidelined for 15 months by a doping suspension after failing a drug test at the Australian Open in January 2016, then returned to the tour in April 2017 with a ranking too low to get into Grand Slam events. The French Open denied her a wild-card invitation, then she planned to try to qualify for Wimbledon before pulling out because of an injured left leg.

Her right shoulder has been an issue over the years.

She cut her 2018 season short in September because of problems with it.

Sharapova originally had surgery on the shoulder in 2008 and was off the tour for about 10 months. She skipped the 2013 U.S. Open because of that shoulder, too.

fabio fognini hot italian tennis men getting noticed atp

Italian Tennis Men Getting Their Due

After four decades of dormancy, male tennis players in Italy are finally showing signs of becoming as good as the women have been.

Marco Cecchinato got things rolling by reaching the French Open semifinals last year — the first Italian man to reach the last four of a major since 1978. Fabio Fognini followed by becoming the first to win a Masters event by beating Rafael Nadal en route to the Monte Carlo title last month.

And players like Matteo Berrettini and Lorenzo Sonego are in the process of breaking through, while teenagers Lorenzo Musetti and Jannik Sinner represent a bright future.

All that success has resulted in record ticket sales at this week’s Italian Open — and some of the Italians could make a run at the French Open, which starts May 26.

“The men haven’t reached this level in 40 years. So people are not coming only to see (Rafael) Nadal or (Serena) Williams, they’re coming to root for the Italians,” Italian Tennis Federation president Angelo Binaghi said. “It’s one thing to have 10,000 spectators. It’s another thing to have 10,000 fans.

“This boom in men’s tennis is the next step in a process that began with the golden age of the women followed by the development of SuperTennis,” Binaghi added, referring to the federation’s highly successful TV channel. “A minute after Fognini won Monte Carlo I called the ticket office and they had already noticed a jump in sales.”

The women’s golden age that Binaghi was referring to includes the four Fed Cup titles that Italy won between 2006 and 2013 with a team featuring Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani. Schiavone (2010 French Open) and Pennetta (2015 U.S. Open) also won Grand Slam titles, while Vinci (2015 U.S. Open) and Errani (2012 French Open) were Grand Slam finalists.

Corrado Barazzutti captained those winning Fed Cup teams and remains Italy’s Davis Cup captain. He’s also Fognini’s personal coach and played on the 1976 Italy team that won the Davis Cup — making him the link between generations.

“A lot of it is because the skill level of our coaches has improved,” Barazzutti said. “We’re growing together with the players. And the federation is doing its part by assisting these coaches and players.”

Berrettini, who recently won the Hungarian Open and reached the BMW Open final in Munich, Germany, in consecutive weeks, upset fifth-ranked Alexander Zverev on Tuesday before a raucous, soccer-like crowd at the Foro Italico.

Sonego, who is 23 like Berrettini, came through qualifying to reach the quarterfinals in Monte Carlo.

Musetti won this year’s Australian Open boys’ title at the age of 16 — and he’s not even the country’s most promising young player. That title belongs to Sinner, the only 17-year-old in the top 400 of the rankings at No. 263.

In Sinner’s first Masters Series match on Sunday, he rallied past American veteran Steve Johnson in three sets. That made Sinner the youngest player to win a match at the Italian Open since Goran Ivanisevic 30 years ago.

“He’s the real deal,” said Riccardo Piatti, Sinner’s coach.

“I’ve coached a lot of players and he’s certainly one of the best I’ve seen,” Piatti told media outlets, adding that Sinner has “similar potential” to top-ranked Novak Djokovic and Richard Gasquet, who he also coached to the top 10. “But we need to give him some time.”

Piatti attributed the success of the home players to the proliferation of Challenger and Futures tournaments — the level just below the pro tour — around Italy.

At No. 12, Fognini is within striking distance of becoming the first Italian man in the top 10 since Barazzutti achieved the feat in 1979.

“Fabio has always been a talented player and now he’s got another component: He’s got a Grand Slam champion in his family,” Piatti said, referring to Pennetta, Fognini’s wife. “Flavia understands him, assists him and encourages him. It’s definitely a favorable situation.”

Fognini and the others are attempting to become the first local man to win the Italian Open since Adriano Panatta in 1976.

“I’m coming in here with a bit more confidence, which is what I lacked in past years,” said Fognini, who is also known for his temper. “I’m a bit calmer. Winning a big tournament like Monte Carlo put me a bit more at ease.”

The Italians’ rise has also coincided with the addition of two big tournaments.

The Next Gen ATP Finals, a year-ending event for the world’s top 21-and-under players, has been held in Milan since 2017. And from 2021-25, Turin will host the ATP Finals for the season’s top eight singles players and doubles teams, taking over from current host London.

“I think this will change the whole thing in Italy,” coaching great Nick Bollettieri said in Rome. “When you have three or four young ones that will inspire the other young ones to keep going.”

When Turin was recently awarded the ATP Finals, Binaghi announced that he expects an Italian to be competing in the tournament come 2021.

“We’ve got players in the right position to make it there,” Barazzutti said. “Why not?”

atp justin gimelstob replaced

ATP Justin Gimelstob Replacements

Former top-10 player Nicolas Lapentti and former ATP executive Weller Evans are the finalists to replace Justin Gimelstob on the ATP board.

The 10 voting members of the player council chose them from a list of six candidates on Tuesday at the Italian Open.

There originally had been 15 candidates — including former players Brad Gilbert and Tim Mayotte — before that group was whittled to a half-dozen.

A decision between Lapentti and Evans will come during the player council meeting at Wimbledon next month.

Gimelstob recently resigned from his seat on the board as the Americas representative after being sentenced to three years of probation, 60 days of community service and a year’s worth of anger management classes for attacking a former friend as they trick-or-treated with their kids in Los Angeles on Halloween in 2017.

As ‘Big Bang Theory’ ends will studio audiences too? Plus ‘Game of Thrones’ winner

Jackie Warner
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As ‘Big Bang Theory’ ends will studio audiences too? Plus ‘Game of Thrones’ winner

“The Big Bang Theory” was on long enough for people to love it at first, then begin to hate / mock it, and then in its final season, love it all over again. It’s one of the lingering comedy shows with a live studio audience, so naturally, people are asking if there’ll be another one like it.

In 2006, TV critics swooned over “30 Rock,” part of a new breed of comedy that dared to fly without a laugh track and whose ranks included “Arrested Development,” ″The Office” and “Everybody Hates Chris.”

Then a misfit nerd crashed the party. “The Big Bang Theory” was crafted in the style of 1950s groundbreaker “I Love Lucy,” with the requisite studio-audience tapings and recorded guffaws intact. Even some of those making the CBS comedy that debuted in 2007 questioned its chances, said Jim Parsons, who stars as Sheldon Cooper, one of the show’s brilliant and socially inept scientists.

″‘We’re making the last great buggy wagon in the age of the Model T, but the Model T is here. So how long does this go?’” was how one writer framed the contrast between old-school and 21st-century TV comedies, Parsons recalled in a recent interview.

As the enduringly popular series prepares to bow out Thursday with an hour-long finale, the question is raised anew: Will viewers, awash in such creatively bold and sophisticated players as “Atlanta” and “Veep,” accept another traditional sitcom? Discounting the resurrection of “Will & Grace” and “Roseanne”-turned “The Connors,” can the old-school formula score the new hits it needs to survive?

Who better to ask than Chuck Lorre, who created “The Big Bang Theory” with Bill Prady and whose mastery of the genre has produced winners including “Two and a Half Men” and “Mom,” but also makes Netflix’s contemporary-style “The Kominsky Method.” The Hollywood veteran hedges his reply — “I’ve been around long enough to know that a prognosis is a really wonderful way to carve into stone how stupid you are. Or arrogant” — then admits to faith in the format known as a “multi-cam,” for the multiple cameras used in tapings.

“I still believe that shooting a show in front of an audience is a wonderful way to tell a story,” Lorre said. “I don’t think the audience watches (‘The Big Bang Theory’) and counts cameras. They watch the show because they love the characters and it delivers on the comedy.”

There’s support for Lorre’s optimism, said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of TV and popular culture.

“Many people talk about the studio audience sitcom being something right out of Colonial Williamsburg, as way past its prime,” Thompson said. “Whenever anybody would make that argument, the first thing I would say is ‘The Big Bang Theory’ has been sitting at top or near the top of the ratings,” even against the strengthening headwinds of streaming platforms including YouTube and Netflix.

The series’ third-to-last episode on May 5 was the most-watched program on broadcast or cable TV with 12.5 million viewers, pushing aside HBO’s behemoth “Game of Thrones,” which wraps its eight-season run May 19.

There’s also the sheer weight of history on the multi-cam’s side. It’s descended from radio comedies and their roster of stars, including the Nelson family in “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” and Ethel Waters in “Beulah,” who were among the first to add pictures to their punchlines — although it took Desi Arnaz, the “I Love Lucy” producer who starred opposite wife Lucille Ball, to popularize filming sitcoms with three (now four) cameras, in part for efficiency.

Look further back to see the art form the sitcom represents, said Prady.

“It’s going to a play,” he said. And while viewers embrace a show like Donald Glover’s “Atlanta,” he said they may also choose TV’s version of a stage production.

Competition from streaming platforms, along with established basic and premium cable players such as FX, HBO and Showtime, will continue eroding the broadcast networks’ audience, outside of live draws like sports, and thus sitcoms’ share of the pie.

When “Cheers” left the TV stage in 1993 after an 11-year run, it drew more than 80 million viewers, a number “Big Bang Theory” can’t hope to touch and which now belongs only to the Super Bowl. Ten years before that, an astounding 100 million-plus viewers tuned it to the two-hour “M-A-S-H” finale.

Sitcoms airing on the major broadcast network — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — also are increasingly elbowed out of the industry’s highest-profile awards, the Emmys. While single-camera “Modern Family” had a lock on the best comedy series trophy for five years, from 2010-14, the last multi-cam series to claim the award was “Everybody Loves Raymond” in 2005.

True enough, said Syracuse’s Thompson. But he recalls dire predictions of the genre’s death in the 1980s, until “The Cosby Show” single-handedly provided the coattails needed to revive the format. And the popularity of multi-cams remains strong enough to create a financial bonanza from reruns, with shows as unalike as “The Golden Girls” and “Seinfeld” still popular well after their 20th-century heydays.

“There’s a lot of people out there who would like to do be the person who creates the next ‘Big Bang Theory’ and, someone’s going to do it,” he said.

It might even be Lorre himself, who produced a four-camera pilot for CBS, one of more than a dozen multi-cams vying this week for a broadcast home in the 2019-20, against a roughly equal number of one-camera competitors.

“If you have something worthwhile, I don’t think it matters whether it’s single-camera, four-camera, 18 cameras or if it’s a flip book,” Lorre said. “If it’s really good, it’s going to find an audience. Maybe that’s naive or overly optimistic. But I have to proceed on that basis.”

big bang theory beats game of thrones ratings race

Game of Thrones Got Big Banged In Ratings Race

“The Big Bang Theory” edged out “Game of Thrones” as the two beloved TV behemoths again topped the ratings as they approach their finales.

CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” drew 12.6 million live viewers last week, while HBO’s “Game of Thrones” had 12.5 million.

It was the second week in a row atop the ratings for the sitcom, whose 12-season run ends May 16.

But with HBO available in far fewer homes, the week was still a win for “Game of Thrones,” which continues to break its own viewership records.

The series’ penultimate episode had 18.4 million viewers if reruns later that night and streaming services views are included. That breaks its record set earlier in the season and makes it the most-watched episode of any show in HBO history.

big bang theory tops nielsen ratings for finale

Nielsen Ratings May 6-12, 2019

Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 6-12. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.

1. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 12.6 million.

2. “Game of Thrones,” HBO, 12.5 million.

3. “NCIS,” CBS, 11.7 million.

4. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 10.5 million.

5. “FBI,” CBS, 8.8 million.

6. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 8.5 million.

7. “Mom,” CBS, 8 million.

8. “American Idol” (Sunday), ABC, 7.9 million.

9. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.82 million.

10. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.8 million.

11. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.7 million.

12. NBA Playoffs: Golden State at Houston, ESPN, 7.32 million.

13. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.3 million

14. “The Voice,” NBC, 7.27 million.

15. NBA Playoffs: Golden State at Houston, Turner, 7 million.

16. NBA Playoffs: Philadelphia at Toronto, Turner, 6.9 million.

17. NBA Playoffs: Houston at Golden State, Turner, 6.86 million.

18. “Hawaii Five-0,” CBS, 6.8 million.

19. “NCIS: New Orleans, CBS, 6.7 million.

20. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 6.4 million.

Donald Trump drug price drop, new Louisiana I-10 bridge fact check

Shanka Cheryl
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Donald Trump drug price drop, new Louisiana I-10 bridge fact check

While Donald Trump is on the 2020 presidential election road, he’s making big promises and claims again. One of his bigger misstatements on Tuesday was regarding prescription drug prices.

Speaking Monday at a White House dinner, he cited a remarkable drop in prescription drug prices. But a government index that had registered some declines is now showing an increase again. Some experts say more increases are likely.

Digging deeper in the facts on Donald Trump’s claim:

TRUMP: “Drug prices have gone down for the first time in 51 years — they’ve gone down. First time in 51 years.”

THE FACTS: The president appeared to be referring to recent decreases in the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs, touted by the administration. But the CPI was updated Friday, before Trump’s latest claim, and it showed an increase of 0.3% in April for prescription drug prices, when compared with the same month last year.

The index tracks a set of medications, both brand drugs and generics.

Other independent studies point to increasing prices for brand name drugs as well and more overall spending on medications.

An analysis of brand-name drug prices by media outlets showed 2,712 price increases in the first half of January, compared with 3,327 increases during the same period last year. However, the size of this year’s increases was not as pronounced.

Both this year and last, the number of price cuts was minuscule. The information for the analysis was provided by the health data firm Elsevier.

An analysis by Altarum, a nonprofit research and consulting firm, found that in 2018, spending on prescription drugs was one of the main factors behind a 4.5% increase in U.S. health spending. Spending on prescription drugs grew much faster than in 2017, according to the study.

Economist Paul Hughes-Cromwick of Altarum, said he expects drug prices will continue to creep up.

“I would be quite surprised if by July the annual rate doesn’t return to a more normal 2%-4% growth,” said Hughes-Cromwick.

Hughes-Cromwick said the government’s inflation index can bounce around from month to month. If White House economic advisers “want to live by favorable months,” he said, “they’d better be ready to die by the less favorable ones.”

The government estimates the nation’s health care tab hit $3.6 trillion last year, or about 18% of the economy.

donald trump drug price drop new louisiana i10 bridge fact check 2019 images

Donald Trump’s Oprah Style I-10 Promise To Louisiana

It was an Oprah-worthy moment: President Donald Trump stood before a Louisiana crowd at an official taxpayer-funded event and tossed out an enticing promise. “If we win this election, which is just 16 months away, we’re giving you a brand new I-10 bridge.”

Trump’s commitment during a visit to a liquefied natural gas export facility on Tuesday drew cheers from his audience. But it generated immediate criticism from ethics experts who have already sounded alarms about Trump’s apparent willingness to put the federal bureaucracy to work for his own political gain.

All presidents benefit from the trappings of the office. But as Trump heads into a turbulent re-election campaign, historians and observers are wondering just how far the president might be willing to go in using the levers of presidential power, from the Pentagon to the Justice Department, to energize his supporters and help bolster his election chances, especially if the polls are tilting against him.

“I think there’s no limit to what Donald Trump will do to get re-elected,” said historian Douglas Brinkley. “When painted into a corner in an election season,” he said Trump has shown a willingness to take “extraordinary leaps to frighten people into voting for him” or make grand infrastructure promises that may never come to pass.

Such accusations, however, are nothing new.

President George W. Bush’s administration “used every favor they had,” including well-timed grants, to help candidates who “needed a little push,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University. And President Barack Obama was accused of making a political play just months before the 2012 election when he took executive action to create new protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

While the White House has pushed back on the notion, Trump made clear in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections that he was willing to use his office as a campaign asset.

As he tried to help Republicans hang on to the Senate and minimize losses in the House, Trump turned to his go-to issue — immigration — and made dire warnings from the White House about an “invasion” of Central American migrants, even though the caravan he warned against was still hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and dwindling.

Then Trump mobilized the U.S. military, deploying thousands of troops to the southern border. While the White House said Trump was responding to a legitimate humanitarian and national security crisis and doing his duty to protect the nation, many saw the move as a political stunt. In the weeks ahead of the election, Trump also threatened to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship and promised a new, 10% tax cut for the middle class that has yet to materialize six months later.

Dave Levinthal, federal politics editor at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit news organization specializing in investigative journalism, said Trump’s unprecedented mixing of government and campaigning began when he launched his reelection effort on Inauguration Day.

“That’s really changed the game in a significant way, in that Donald Trump has more or less created a true, permanent presidential campaign,” Levinthal said. “It may have felt like that before but now it really is reality.”

Since then, Trump has been steadily raising money and holding political rallies, along with staging official government events that often have the feel of campaign functions.

Indeed, on Tuesday, Trump used his event in Louisiana to size up his 2020 Democratic opponents and dismiss their prospects, before drawing a standing ovation as he promised to rebuild the Calcasieu River Bridge.

“We’ll have it all set to go Day One, right after the election, OK?” Trump told the crowd.

The day before, Trump was offering up new federal cash for the crucial battleground states of Florida and Michigan, asking Congress for $200 million for Army Corps of Engineers work in the Florida Everglades, an extra $1.6 billion for NASA and $300 million for Great Lakes restoration work.

Trump’s original budget plan had proposed slashing the Great Lakes money, but the president announced he was reversing that during a March rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He also promised a swift infusion of federal aid to the hurricane-battered Florida Panhandle during a rally there last week.

“He’s already put Florida pork projects into play to make sure he holds that state,” said Brinkley, adding that, while all politicians make such promises, “no president will use fearmongering and hyperbole to the degree that Trump will to drive a wedge issue home.”

Federal law prohibits the promising of favors or other benefits in exchange for supporting a candidate, said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government watchdog group.

The White House, however, pushed back on that notion. “The President of the United States must be able to speak to the American people about important policies like rebuilding the military, infrastructure and immigration regardless of whether it’s January 2017 or November 2020 – and the notion that would be considered unlawful is ludicrous,” said spokesman Steven Groves.

Beyond typical promises of pork and pandering, there is also concern that Trump might be willing to cross other lines.

“I do think a lesson that he probably took from the midterms is his ability to put things in motion as president that he can do to affect the electorate — especially his base,” said David Lapan, the former Department of Homeland Security press secretary under Trump and longtime Defense Department spokesman and adviser.

Lapan said he worried that sending troops to the border without a legitimate national security threat before the midterms had politicized the military and left Trump vulnerable to accusations that potential future deployments are being driven by politics.

“If you start using those powers for political reasons, then you raise questions about your motives,” he said, asking: “If it came down to some type of confrontation with Iran, is the public going to believe that the actions were taken because of the military threat or to advance a partisan political agenda?”

NBC adds plenty of comedy to drama for Fall 2019 lineup

George Cando
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NBC adds plenty of comedy to drama for Fall 2019 lineup

NBC is ready to get back to a comedy heavy Thursday night after having so much drama, and below is the Fall 2019 schedule to see what’s new and what’s returning.

NBC didn’t invoke its “must-see TV” 20th-century marketing slogan in announcing a renewed emphasis on sitcoms next season, but it could have.

Calling comedy the “heart” of its brand, the network announced it is adding four new sitcoms to its lineup for 2019-20, with stars including Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live” and sitcom veterans Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”) and Steven Weber (“Mom,” ″Wings”).

On Thursday night, where NBC sitcoms including “Cheers” and “Friends” ruled back in the 1980s and ’90s, the network will introduce newcomers “Perfect Harmony” and “Sunnyside” to join returning comedies “Superstore” and “The Good Place” this fall.

“Thursdays will continue to be the home of the smartest, buzziest and most enduring comedies on television,” George Cheeks, who is co-chair with Paul Telegdy of NBC Entertainment, said with bravado.

“Perfect Harmony” stars Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”) as a former college music professor whose next chapter unexpectedly involves a small-town church’s choir.

In “Sunnyside,” Kal Penn calls on his comedic credits (“Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”) and political ones (he served in the Obama administration) to play a fallen New York City councilman who’s seeking redemption for himself and help for immigrants dreaming of American citizenship.

Thompson will do double-duty at NBC next season, sticking with “SNL” and starring in “The Kenan Show,” with Chris Rock among the executive producers. In the midseason series, Thompson plays a dedicated dad balancing family, work and a meddling father-in-law played by Andy Garcia.

Drescher and Weber star in “Indebted,” also for midseason. They play what NBC called “boomerang parents” who, broke and unannounced, move back in with their son and daughter-in-law.

The long network afterlife of “Friends” and other sitcoms makes them valuable now and in the future for its makers, which for “Sunnyside” and “The Kenan Show” include NBC corporate sibling Universal Television.

NBC kicked off the broadcast networks’ presentation of their new schedules to advertisers in New York this week. The network said it’s working from a position of ratings strength but, acknowledging the rising competition from streaming platforms such as Netflix, said shows that begin on the network will have a critical digital afterlife.

jimmy smitts in bluff city law nbc shows 2019

What To Expect From NBC 2019 – 2020

MORE ‘THIS IS US,’ MORE DRAMA

The popular drama’s return wasn’t in doubt, but NBC cemented its value to the network by renewing it for what it called an “unprecedented” three more years.

Whether it will continue beyond season six is “open for right now,” said Paul Telegdy, who is co-chair with George Cheeks of NBC Entertainment. Series creator Dan Fogelman “has a plan for the show,” but Telegdy wouldn’t tip his hand as to whether that plan will mean even more years with the Pearson family.

“This Is Us” will return in the fall, but fans of some NBC shows, including “Manifest,” ″Will & Grace” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” will have to wait until midseason in early 2020.

NBC executives said they’re not worried by the challenge of drawing audience attention to late-arriving entries.

“There is no negative to a show being launched in midseason” given the promotional platform that “NBC Sunday Night Football” provides from fall through winter, Telegdy said.

Four new dramas are slated for the coming season, with one set for fall. “Bluff City Law” stars NBC alum Jimmy Smits (“The West Wing,” ″L.A. Law”) as head of a celebrated Memphis, Tennessee, law firm who is joined by his estranged daughter.

The midseason newcomers include “Council of Dads,” about a family man who makes sure his brood will always have the fatherly help they need; “Lincoln,” inspired by the novel “The Bone Collector,” and “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” about a brilliant computer coder who’s able to eavesdrop on the hopes of those around her through her songs.

‘LITTLE BIG SHOTS’ MAKEOVER

Steve Harvey is out and Melissa McCarthy is in as host of what NBC is describing as a revamp of the talent showcase for kids.

“It’s a real refresh for a brand that has done very well for us, Telegdy said. McCarthy is “an incredible comedian” who will bring a fresh perspective to the series, he said.

McCarthy, who made a splash on “Saturday Night Live” playing then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and starred in the CBS sitcom “Mike & Molly,” juggles her TV work with a busy big-screen career that included an Oscar nomination for the film “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Daytime talk-show host Harvey received an Emmy nod in 2016 for “Little Big Shots.”

STILL ON THE BUBBLE

While “I Feel Bad” is living up to its title and won’t be back on NBC, there’s still hope for the series “Abby’s,” ″A.P. Bio,” ″The Village” and “The Enemy Within.”

They’re yet to be renewed, and NBC is taking a wait-and-see attitude as they finish out this season.

“The next season’s schedule is fluid,” Cheeks said. “We want to give those shows a chance to fulfill their run, and then we’ll take another look at them again. We program 52 weeks a year, so there are a lot of TBD (to be determined) slots.”

new nbc show council of dads with sarah wayne callies walking dead return

NBC’s prime-time schedule for fall 2019:

Monday

8-10 p.m. — “The Voice”

10 p.m. — “Bluff City Law”

Tuesday

8 p.m. — “The Voice”

9 p.m. — “This Is Us”

10 p.m. — “New Amsterdam”

Wednesday

8 p.m. — “Chicago Med”

9 p.m. — “Chicago Fire”

10 p.m. — “Chicago P.D.”

Thursday

8 p.m. — “Superstore”

8:30 p.m. — “Perfect Harmony”

9 p.m. — “The Good Place”

9:30 p.m. — “Sunnyside”

10 p.m. — “Law & Order: SVU”

Friday

8 p.m. — “The Blacklist”

9-11 p.m. — “Dateline NBC”

Saturday

8-10 p.m. — “Dateline Saturday Night Mystery”

10 p.m. — “Saturday Night Live” (reruns)

Sunday

7 p.m. — “Football Night in America”

8:20 p.m. — “NBC Sunday Night Football”

Zombies make history at 72nd Cannes Film Festival with Donald Trump’s wall

George Cando
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Zombies make history at 72nd Cannes Film Festival with Donald Trump’s wall

History was made at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival when a zombie movie was the opening ceremony choice which was preceded by jury president Alejandro Inarritu having a few words to say about President Donald Trump’s plans for a Mexican border wall, along with a director’s chair left empty in tribute to the late Agnes Varda. Her image was used in the official poster of the festival.

It’s the first time a zombie flick has opened the festival on the French Riviera. The film, starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Tilda Swinton, opened the 72nd edition of the festival with a bloody and droll apocalyptic tale inspired by George Romero.

The opening ceremony began with a chair marked “Agnes V.” to commemorate the French New Wave pioneer, who died in March at age 90, and a performance of “Without You,” from Varda’s landmark 1962 film “Cleo From 5 to 7,” by the Belgian singer Angele.

Inarritu, the Mexican-born filmmaker of “Birdman” and “The Revenant,” is the first Latin American to preside over the jury that decides Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or. Addressing reporters earlier in the day alongside fellow jury members, Inarritu drew a parallel between the rhetoric of Trump to that of the 1930s.

cannes film festival alejandro gonzalex inarritu rails against donald trump wall

“We know how this story ends if we keep with that rhetoric,” said Inarritu. “We think we are evolving with the technology and social media. It seems every tweet is a brick of isolation attached to ideological things and is creating a lot of isolation and paranoia.”

This year’s Cannes arrives with the usual swirl of celebrity and controversy. Among the starrier films debuting at the festival on the French Riviera will be Quentin Tarantino’s 1969 Los Angeles tale “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and the Elton John biopic “Rocketman.”

Also on tap are the latest from renowned auteurs Pedro Almodovar, Terrence Malick and the Dardennes brothers. Also of interest will be the debut from Mati Diop, “Atlantique,” which marks the first black woman filmmaker in competition in Cannes.

Last year’s Cannes saw 82 women, which represented the number of women directors to ever appear in competition in Cannes, protest for gender inequality on the festival’s famed red carpet steps. Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux signed a pledge promising to make the festival’s selection process more transparent and to push executive boards toward gender parity.

javier bardem with charlotte gainsbourg dead dont die at cannes film festival
Javier Bardem with Charlotte Gainsbourg at 72nd Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony.

This year, there are four women in Cannes’ 21-film main slate, tying the festival’s previous high in 2011. For the first time, Cannes has revealed gender-based statistics on its submissions and selections, a measure of transparency that had been requested by 50/50X2020, the French sister group of Time’s Up. Fremaux on Tuesday defended the festival’s record, bristling at critics who have said Cannes isn’t progressing quickly enough.

“I’m looking forward to time when we come and we don’t have to say ‘the women directors’ and ‘as a woman,’” said juror member Kelly Riechart, the “Wendy and Lucy” filmmaker and a jury member

“People keep asking us what’s it like being a woman director,” said Italian filmmaker and Cannes regular Alice Rohrwacher, also a jury member. “It’s a bit like asking someone who’s survived a shipwreck why they’re still alive. Well, ask the person who built the boat.”

Also on the jury are “The Favourite” director Yorgos Lanthimos, Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”), French director Enki Bilal, Senegalese actress-director Maimouna N’Diaye, French filmmaker Robin Campillo and actress Elle Fanning.

At 21, Fanning is the youngest juror ever in Cannes.

“I definitely am young but I started acting very young, as well,” said Fanning, whose first movie role came at age four.

As was the case last year, there are no Netflix releases in competition at Cannes. Following an outcry from French theater owners, the festival has required films in its main slate to have theatrical distribution in France. Netflix, unwilling to adhere to an exclusive theatrical window of three years in France, last year pulled its films, including Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.”

Inarritu, a close friend of Cuaron’s, said “cinema was born to be experienced in a communal experience.” But he spoke strongly in support of Netflix for backing the kinds of movies — including those in a country’s native language — that rarely make it into U.S. and global cinemas.

“They have been capitalizing on the lack of these films,” said Inarritu. “Why not give the choice to people to experience cinema?”

Some previous Cannes jury presidents have had a forceful influence on the movies chosen for awards. But Inarritu, who said he didn’t want to “judge” movies but preferred “to be impregnated by them,” promised he would be a very passive jury leader.

“I have never controlled anything,” said the director. “Not my sets, not my family, nothing.”

Roger Federer ready for more clay action, Kyrgios wins while Serena pulls out

Luka Alario
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Roger Federer ready for more clay action, Kyrgios wins while Serena pulls out

It’s been three years since Roger Federer has played in the Italian Open, and his opponent will be Joao Sousa. The president of the Italian Tennis Federation took full advantage of the Swiss maestro’s participation and has doubled the price of the tickets for the session to “reward fans who had bought tickets before they knew Federer would play.”

Makes no sense except he knows he can raise prices for Federer, and his fans will easily pay it. Naturally, he couldn’t just say that, though.

Even Federer questions the logic. “They made it in a way like they rewarded the fans who bought tickets earlier? Which is sort of strange, but okay. I just really hope it doesn’t take away the fact I’m really happy to be here.”

Novak Djokovic, who won at the Madrid Open on Sunday, was also asked to give his view on the decision.

And the world No 1 stressed that he didn’t feel disrespected and hoped Federer’s arrival would create more revenue for the tournament.

”It’s the first time I’ve heard that information,” Djokovic said.

“I don’t think that because Roger hasn’t won here that it affects his value or what he brings to the world of tennis or any tournament.

“He is the biggest name of all, historically he’s won the most titles, he is a huge brand in sports worldwide, one of the biggest of all time.

“From one side, I can maybe understand. I don’t feel offended or feel it has disrespected me or Rafa or anybody else.

“The bottom line is that if it brings more tickets and more attendance to the tournament, that great for everybody, I hope it does. If not, too bad.”

At 37 and with 20 Grand Slam titles, Roger Federer still gets excited about playing tennis.

That’s why he added this week’s Italian Open to his schedule.

“I was in the mood to play,” Federer said Tuesday after a practice session on the Foro Italico’s Campo Centrale. “Would I rather practice or play matches? … There would be excitement, more excitement than me coming to a practice court in Switzerland.

“Honestly, I love to play matches. Regardless of what happens here, I just think it’s good for me to play matches at this stage,” Federer added.

After reaching the Madrid Open quarterfinals last week upon his return to clay after a two-year absence, Federer went to Switzerland. He said the cool weather at home also convinced him to make the trip to Rome.

“I felt like playing somewhat maybe more sea level conditions would be good for me,” Federer said.

Federer begins play Wednesday against 75th-ranked Joao Sousa, who saved four match points before beating Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4) Tuesday. Federer is in the same half of the draw as eight-time Rome champion Rafael Nadal.

“I’m so far away in the draw,” Federer said of a possible semifinal matchup with his longtime rival. “I have other problems first getting there.”

Federer is a four-time runner-up at the Italian Open, which he’s never won, making it one of the few significant trophies he hasn’t claimed.

Federer is preparing for the French Open, which starts in less than two weeks.

Federer had initially planned to play only in Madrid before Roland Garros. When he announced on Saturday that he was coming to Rome, Italian Open organizers raised prices for remaining tickets to Wednesday’s session.

“I heard some fans clearly were not happy about it. That’s obviously disappointing to hear. They rewarded the fans who bought tickets earlier, which is sort of strange, but OK,” Federer said. “I just really hope it doesn’t take away the fact I’m really happy to be here. … I’m pumped up to play well. My excitement couldn’t be bigger.”

While he hasn’t won in Rome, Federer has found success in Italy. He won his first career title in Milan in 2001. In the memorable 2006 Italian Open final, Federer lost in a fifth-set tiebreaker to Nadal.

“Always enjoyed playing in Italy. It’s probably the country I’ve played the most junior tennis in,” he said. “Coming down from Switzerland to the clay courts was always a logical junior trip. They have very strong junior tournaments here.”

Nick Kyrgios knocks daniil medvedev from Italian Open 2019

Nick Kyrgios Knocks Out Medvedev From Italian Open

Nick Kyrgios took full advantage of his crafty game to eliminate Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the first round of the Italian Open on Tuesday.

For his first win on clay this year, Kyrgios was full of smiles as he fired aces and passing shots seemingly at will.

Kyrgios set the tone by serving underhand to start the match, catching Medvedev off guard. There were also a bevy of drop shots and even a successful through-the-legs effort.

“I was trying to throw him off his game because I knew he loves rhythm. He’s a great player,” Kyrgios said. “Today was a lot of fun. I thought the crowd was a lot of fun. It’s very important to go out there and put on a bit of a show.”

Medvedev played better after getting his lower back massaged after the first set but had no answer for Kyrgios’ wide array of shots in the third, prompting the frustrated Russian to break his racket by slamming it on the dirt.

Kyrgios won the final game at love by serving four straight aces. He had 15 aces in all.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams withdrew ahead of her second-round match against sister Venus because of a previously injured left knee.

Also, Joao Sousa saved four match points before beating Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4) to set up a meeting with Roger Federer, who made a late decision to play in Rome because he wants more matches.

Italian wild and Rome resident Matteo Berrettini reached the third round by upsetting 2017 Rome champion Alexander Zverev 7-5, 7-5 amid a raucous soccer-like atmosphere on Campo Centrale; while David Goffin rallied past Stan Wawrinka 4-6, 6-0, 6-2.

Others advancing included Karen Khachanov, Marin Cilic, American qualifier Taylor Fritz, Radu Albiot, Jeremy Chardy and Diego Schwartzman.

Former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki retired due to a left leg injury after losing a first-set tiebreaker to American opponent Danielle Collins.

Wozniacki took a medical timeout when trailing 5-2 to get treatment then came back to force the tiebreaker but she quickly retired after losing the set.

Wozniacki also retired from her opening match at the Madrid Open last week.

The 30th-ranked Collins notched her fourth victory over a top-20 player this season, with the other three coming during her breakthrough semifinal run at the Australian Open.

“I’m comfortable on this surface, and making improvements within my game, and doing a little bit better than I did last year,” Collins said.

French qualifier Alize Cornet beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-1, 6-4.

Ashleigh Barty, Maria Sakkari, Carla Suarez Navarro and Kristina Mladenovic also advanced.

tommy paul swinging back at paris open

Tommy Paul’s Friends

Tommy Paul paid close attention as his friends and countrymen Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka produced headline-worthy performances at the Australian Open.

Now Paul aims to make his own Grand Slam breakthrough when he heads to his first French Open main draw in two weeks, thanks to winning the U.S. Tennis Association men’s wild-card challenge.

“I’ve known Frances since I was 9. Known Reilly since I was 10. Known Fritz since I was 13. I love seeing them do well,” Paul said in a telephone interview. “I know how hard every single one of them works. All of them deserve it.”

At Melbourne in January, Tiafoe made his first major quarterfinal before losing to Rafael Nadal. Fritz got to the third round there for the first time before bowing out against Roger Federer. Opelka earned his first Grand Slam match win by upsetting No. 9 seed John Isner.

“Obviously, it’s a little bit of a motivator for me, because I see them doing that well in the tournaments and working so hard in practice — and I’m working just as hard as them,” said Paul, who grew up in North Carolina and now is based at the USTA national campus in Florida. “And I want to be exactly where they were during the Australian Open.”

Each member of that American quartet is 21; Paul turns 22 on Friday. They went through the junior ranks together and now give the country a crop of young talent pushing its way up the ranks in the pros.

“It’s a group that kind of came up together. Did really, really well at the junior level,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager of USTA player development. “They push each other, because … they all believe they can do similar things, I think. That positive peer pressure is a really healthy dynamic.”

Lauren Davis, a 25-year-old from Ohio, clinched the USTA women’s wild-card berth Sunday to secure a seventh French Open appearance. Davis is a former top-30 player whose ranking dropped to No. 264 last year after she sat out the clay-court circuit, citing fatigue.

Paul was the French Open junior champion in 2015, beating Fritz in the final to become only the second U.S. player since John McEnroe in 1977 to win the boys’ title there. Fritz defeated Paul in that year’s U.S. Open junior final.

At Roland Garros, where play begins May 26, Paul will be contesting his third main draw at a major tournament, after a pair of U.S. Open appearances.

Unlike many Americans over the years, he has an affinity for the slow surface used in Paris. That’s because he learned to play tennis on green clay.

“It was all we practiced on, all I played on, growing up. All I really knew,” Paul said. “I feel like it’s more like a crafty surface. You can mix in drop shots and you have to play a lot more different balls. A lot more factors into the game.”

Despite missing months at a time last season with an injured right elbow, and again this season because of a problematic left knee, he reached a career-high 136th in the ATP rankings last week.

“I’ve just been really impressed by how he’s worked and rehabbed. Just watching him put the work in every day. Taking care of his body. Taking ownership. Becoming more mature,” the USTA’s Blackman said. “That shows the self-awareness and maturity that’s just a huge part of a player being able to maximize their potential.”

Paul’s goal at the moment is to get into the top 50 by the end of the season; he knows the French Open provides an opportunity to take strides toward that.

He says “every part of my game has room for improvement,” and thinks the key is “having more of an open mind about trying to improve everything — off the court, especially.”

He went on: “Just doing everything a little bit more professional now. … Working with a psychologist on breathing or what to be thinking at certain times of a match. Or diet stuff, making sure I’m eating healthy. Doing my recovery. Talking to my team, to my coaches, to my agents, to my parents. Making sure everybody’s in the loop and we’re all doing everything we can to boost my game.”

serena williams out of italian open from injury

Serena Williams Pulls Out Of Italian Open

Serena Williams withdrew from the Italian Open on Tuesday ahead of her second-round match against sister Venus because of a previously injured left knee.

Tournament organizers made the announcement a day after Serena opened her clay-court season with a straight-sets win over Swedish qualifier Rebecca Peterson.

“I must withdraw from the Italian Open due to pain in my left knee,” Serena said, according to the WTA website. “I will miss the fans and competition at one of my favorite tournaments. I’ll be concentrating on rehab and look forward to seeing you all at the French Open and next year in Rome.”

The next tournament on Serena’s schedule is Roland Garros, which starts in less than two weeks.

It’s the third straight event that the 37-year-old Serena has exited from due to physical problems.

She retired due to a viral illness during her third-round match against Garbine Muguruza in Indian Wells, California; and withdrew with the left knee injury before her third-round match at the Miami Open in March.

As a result of this latest withdrawal, Venus advances into the third round via a walkover.

Rafael Nadal pushes through clay slump while Novak Djokovic takes third Madrid title

Luka Alario
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Rafael Nadal pushes through clay slump while Novak Djokovic takes third Madrid title

Rafael Nadal has dealt with enough setbacks in his career to know how to handle them, and his recent clay slump is no different. The Spaniard is pushing forward while trying not to let things get to him.

Usually this time of the year Rafael Nadal is talking about how his game is peaking ahead of the French Open. The discussion is typically about how many title-winning streaks he has extended and which records he has broken as the clay season moves toward its climax at Roland Garros.

Not this time, though.

Things are different for Nadal in 2019, and he is in an unfamiliar position after a series of disappointing results on his favorite surface.

Instead of celebrating titles and records, Nadal is having to explain why he has struggled to win matches.

“Tennis is about winning or losing. I’ve won a lot over the years on this surface, but this year it hasn’t been the case. I’ve been really close, but I haven’t been able to win,” Nadal said Saturday after losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Madrid Open for his third straight semifinal elimination on clay this season.

He had already failed to reach the final in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, tournaments he had won the last three consecutive seasons. It was an uncharacteristic streak of poor results for the Spaniard, who hadn’t arrived in Madrid without a title since 2004.

Still, Nadal wasn’t dwelling on it too much.

“You just have to accept it and I have to accept it naturally. But to accept things does not mean to try to change things,” he said. “During all my life, I think I have taken the victories very naturally and with a lot of normality. With the losses I’ll do the same. It will be normal and I’m going to accept it naturally.”

Nadal lost to Fabio Fognini in Monte Carlo and Dominic Thiem in Barcelona, and the defeat to the up-and-coming Tsitsipas in Madrid came after a quarterfinal win over Stan Wawrinka that Nadal called his best match on clay this season. He couldn’t keep up with the aggressive game of the ninth-ranked Greek on Saturday, though, losing the decisive points to again fail to advance past the last four.

Nadal said not making it to tournament finals as often as he did in the past shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise.

“It’s more normal what is happening right now than what happened in the last 14 years,” he said. “I think I have tennis ahead of me. I have time ahead of me. I’ll be able to try to win these tournaments that I was not able to win this year. And what I have to do is to stay fit and to keep playing at a high level.”

Nadal has won a clay-court title in each of the last 15 seasons and remains the tour’s most successful player on the surface. He next plays in Rome, where he is the defending champion, then will try to win a record-extending 12th French Open title in June.

Nadal said it was impossible to know what the current setbacks could mean for his future.

“We’ll see,” he said. “Hopefully, I will accept this defeat properly and we will see what happens week after week, day after day. I’ll try to work in a proper way, in a proper manner, with a proper attitude and then just believe in my possibilities and believe that things will work out and they will click.

“I’ll keep trying until I can to keep playing at a high level,” Nadal said. “And If I can keep doing that, I will continue to have chances. If not, then that’s it. There’s no need to make any drama or overthink when things are going bad. It is a sport and in a sport it’s a matter of winning and sometimes losing and accepting both as naturally as possible.”

novak djokovic kisses 2019 madrid open title with stefanos tsitsipas sits behind him

Novak Djokovic Beats Stefanos Tsitsipas For Madrid Open Title

Novak Djokovic celebrated a lot more than a record-tying 33rd Masters 1000 title at the Madrid Open.

Djokovic left the Spanish capital feeling pretty good about his game, too, carrying a lot of confidence into the rest of the clay-court season.

The top-ranked Djokovic earned a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over Stefanos Tsitsipas on Sunday to join Nadal as the most successful players in Masters 1000 tournaments, moving five ahead of Roger Federer, who is third in the all-time list.

It was Djokovic’s second title of the season, adding to his triumph in the Australian Open.

“I feel like this tournament win was very important for my level of confidence because after the Australian Open I wasn’t playing my best, I wasn’t finding the right game and the consistency on the court in Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo,” Djokovic said. ”(It’s a) very important time for me in the season, because this gives me a lot of confidence prior to Rome and, of course, Roland Garros, where I definitely want to play my best.”

Djokovic will be seeking his second French Open title in June. He now has three Madrid Open trophies, adding to the ones he won in 2011 and 2016.

“These are the best tournaments, biggest tournaments we have in our sport, in the ATP, of course alongside the Grand Slams,” Djokovic said. “This is as important and as good as it gets.”

Djokovic was in control from the start against his 20-year-old Greek opponent, who had defeated Nadal in the Madrid semifinals and was trying to become the first player to win three tour titles this season.

djokovic returns tough shot to stefanos tsitsipas madrid open 2019

The Serb broke Tsitsipas early in the first set and late in the second to comfortably close out the match at the Magic Box center court, securing his 14th clay title — and 74th overall — without dropping a set.

The eighth-seeded Tsitsipas, the tour’s winningest player in 2019 with 27 victories, lacked the intensity and aggressiveness that he showed against second-ranked Nadal and was overpowered by Djokovic. He had beaten Djokovic in Toronto last year in the first meeting between the two players.

“He deserved the victory, he played unbelievable. I couldn’t do much,” Tsitsipas said. “Physically I was not there. My legs were not coping with my mind. Completely I could feel the fatigue and this soreness, not just in my legs, but everywhere in my body. I had a tough match last night, so he took advantage of that. I just didn’t have solutions.”

Djokovic didn’t concede a break point on Sunday, earning a crucial one for himself at 4-4 in the second set by returning Tsitsipas’ overhead shot with a backhand winner down the line. He then served out to win the match.

The 31-year-old Djokovic, who now has 200 wins against top 10 opponents, had struggled after winning the Australian Open, with his best result since then having been a quarterfinal appearance in Monte Carlo at the start of the clay-court season.

He was coming off another confidence-boosting win over an in-form Dominic Thiem to make it to the final in Madrid.

Tsitsipas, who will reach a career-high No. 7 ranking this week, won titles in Estoril and Marseille, and reached the final in Dubai, where he lost to Federer. He was beaten by Nadal in the Australian Open semifinals for his best-ever showing in a Grand Slam. The Toronto final, when he lost to Nadal, was his first in a Masters 1000 event.

In the doubles final, Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau defeated Thiem and Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 6-3 for their second Madrid Open title, adding to their 2016 victory.

Kiki Bertens won the women’s title on Saturday.

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