Sakkari was a bit of a surprise for me, I wasn't aware of her terrible H2H against her opponent. Quite a few of the other seed defeats aren't that surprising, but I think the fact that it's not surprising to see so many go out early does demonstrate my point that women's tennis is less predictable, in Madrid we reached the last 16 and the top seed left in the draw was #8... if that happened on the men's side it would be astonishing, on the women's side, not particularly.

That Everton win against Chelsea really surprised me, it looked like they were favourites for relegation, but now it's wide open again. I'd agree that probably Leeds look most likely to take the third relegation spot, not least because their goal difference is so much worse than Everton's or Burnley's - if Everton or Burnley finish on the same points as Leeds, then they are safe. Leeds know they need to finish at least one point higher.

This is what I was talking about the other day, about how women's tennis is so unpredictable. In Madrid, we are now through to the last 16... so in theory most matches should be a player seeded 1-8 vs a player seeded 9-16... except out of the top 8 seeds, only the #8 seed is left, everyone else got knocked out already (alright, Swiatek withdrew before the tournament started, but that's the exception). There's no-one (other than Swiatek) that I'd feel confident betting on.

It's not social media companies that cause people to think in certain ways; they're simply the delivery mechanism. But obviously social media can be exploited by people/companies/nations to cause people to think in certain ways.

Facebook/Twitter etc don't have an incentive to promote any particular narrative, other than 'Facebook/Twitter is great'. Censoring tends to occur when social media companies decide that they need to do something because if they don't, it will reflect badly on them, and they could get into legal trouble or (worse) lose revenue. Censoring Trump (which is I think what you're alluding to) was done entirely out of self-interest, I don't imagine they give a f*ck about Rep/Dem etc, they're interested only in themselves as a company and how their actions or inaction affect their profits.

As regards Covid, they probably don't want to be seen to be promoting the view that people should be injecting themselves with bleach or exposing their internal organs to the healing power of sunshine. That could reflect kind of badly on them, if people start dying. I don't think they'd particularly care about people dying, but they'd certainly care about being associated with it (or being seen as causing it).

As regards gender, if social media companies appear to be pushing anything, then I'd suspect again it's out of self-interest, and not wanting to be accused of being anti- anything.

It's all self-interest, nothing more sinister than that.

Superb performance from Raducanu today, again I watched the whole match and she was playing at the same level she was when she won the US Open last summer. She was dominant from start to finish, playing almost flawless tennis at times, and drawing mistakes from her opponent. This is certainly the best she has played this year... and the draw has really opened up on her side now, it's a great opportunity for her to go deep into the tournament, if it goes according to seeding, she should reach the semis with a match up against Sakkari in a repeat of the US Open semi.

Yes, I watched the whole match - because I'm British, and want Raducanu to win every time.  

First set was quite tight, both players doing okay but not great. The whole match really swung on the game where Martincova was a break up, and serving for the set at 5-3. She had two set points, but Raducanu took the game with a break back for 5-4. After that it went to a tie-break which was fairly one-sided.

And after losing the first set in that way, Martincova just collapsed. She looked close to tears through a lot of the second set, and was spraying shots out of the court all over the place... Raducanu just basically had to keep getting the ball back over the net and wait for her opponent to make a wild error... the 6-0 scoreline in that second set was an accurate reflection of how one-sided it was.

I find that the women's matches are generally tougher to predict. The top few players are closer to those below them, there isn't the gulf that we've been used to seeing on the men's side, where Djok/Fed/Nadal sweep all before them. Excepting Swiatek, I suppose, who's close to a guaranteed win, everyone else seems vulnerable. We've had a few top seeds go out already.

Ideally there would be no gender identities, because it would all be natural and wouldn't even need to be discussed. But for so long as discrimination persists, labelling of some sort is required.

Speaking of which, it's kinda snitch to have you back on the forum, hope you stick around.

I suppose there's also the question, given that his performance over 90 minutes is definitely not what it used to be... which teams would want him and could afford to pay his huge wages?
Teams at the very top, who are fighting for the Champions League, would likely not want him as although he's still very good, he's probably not good enough given the financial outlay.
Conversely, he could get huge wages by going to a lesser team somewhere rich, USA maybe or the East... but that would probably not satisfy his desire for top-level football.
Man U may be the best it gets... good but not at the very top, able to pay the wages, and where he's worshipped as a hero.

It's certainly why democracy is important. I'd disagree that it means governments should be limited. In general, if we are talking about capitalist democracies, then the government needs to set the limits on capitalism to prevent it becoming exploitative. A limited government would mean more monopolies, cartels, anti-competitive practices, etc. I think the government needs to be of sufficient size to manage the process capably. The key point is that the government should not become corrupt, and needs to be accountable if it swings too far (either to the right or to the left) - through the democratic process.

The environmental impact of PoW as a process, particularly with bitcoin, will certainly impact the mainstream adoption of crypto... we need look no further than Tesla suspending bitcoin as a purchase method due to the energy expenditure of PoW. Even if energy for bitcoin mining was 100% renewable, companies and governments will still be concerned about its perceived association with climate change. PoS coins (soon to include ETH) should benefit, but whether this positive will overcome the negative for the industry as a whole is perhaps less certain.

I don't know, that doesn't sound like Djokovic. He is one of the ultimate competitors, I don't think he ever really loses through overconfidence, and he's built his whole career on ruthlessly maintaining his physical form, so I don't think he needs to work on himself. And he's well-used to dealing with pressure and being the centre of attention, he's had that most of his career. The only time I think the pressure may have got to him was the US Open final last year, on the verge of both the calendar slam and (what was then) a record 21st slam in total. But in general, he's well able to cope with it.

But yes, I'd agree that whenever he's in a bad situation, he always starts making excuses or more often, mid-match, feigning injury.

Liverpool did a supremely professional job in what was a trickier tie than it looked, and yes they look very likely now to reach the final.
Real vs Man City is certainly a lot more closely balanced than those odds suggest. If a first leg ends 4-3, then how can anyone really write-off the team that scored three and say they won't win the return match? Of course Real will be under considerable pressure, and of course beating Man City anywhere is a tough ask, but really, those odds do look quite extreme.

I think I'd probably qualify that, we are partly selfish and therefore democratic capitalism suits us the best.

Pure socialism doesn't work, because it relies on everyone being totally selfless. But they aren't, so the system is very easy to exploit.
Pure capitalism in practice would be almost indistinguishable from pure socialism in practice... winner becomes fabulously wealthy, majority of the population are so poor that they struggle to survive.

What makes things work is democracy (however imperfect it may be). This is because it provides an essential counterweight against extremist ideology. People often disagree quite vehemently about how governments should behave, and the extent to which they should work for the populace against the extent to which they should enable businesses to flourish... but it's generally simply a question of degree. Most people would agree that any system that lacks a counterweight would be a terrible idea, and cause a lot of suffering.

He could simply rescind Trump's Twitter ban though, right? Seems a lot less effort than setting up a complex merger with "Donald Trump's version of the Truth trumps the actual true Truth because Donald Trump's Truth Social is controlled by Donald Trump" (or whatever it's called). Anyway, "Truth" is quite the Damascene conversion, isn't it? For a guy who told over 30,000 lies in his one 4-year term in office.

Liverpool should certainly be the favourites, yes, and I'd expect them to go through to the final. But I don't think Villareal should be underestimated, remember they have got through to a Champions League semi-final, and that doesn't happen by accident. And in particular, remember that they knocked out Juventus in the round of 16, and knocked out Bayern in the quarters. Any team that can knock out those two is capable of winning the tournament. So yes, Liverpool are favourites, but it's unlikely to be easy for them.

I think it's close enough that the one who gets pole won't necessarily win the GP. Of course it depends on the track, though. And it also depends on the gap in qualifying. If someone gets pole by a couple of thousandths, then that's different to if someone takes pole by half a second. I haven't looked at the stats, but I'd guess that 'winner of race is from pole' would be well above 50% most seasons, but not so clear-cut this season. As we're at the start of a new era, everything is a bit uncertain, and I'd wait a couple more races for it all to calm down and patterns to start to emerge. But who knows? My betting record isn't fantastic.

It was quite incredible how Real kept coming back, three times Man City had a two-goal advantage, and three times Real pulled it back to a single goal. Man City will definitely not be happy about this result, arguably it now makes Real favourites for the tie when we return to Madrid.

But of course that will mean the pressure is on Real to secure the win at home, and City can just defend and try to hit them on the break. It's very finely-balanced. And of course we remember the previous round, where Real played Chelsea... and Real won in England, but then lost back at home in Spain in the second leg and nearly went out of the competition.

I'd definitely agree that what Djokovic says and does is sometimes very different from the truth, as can be seen with his notorious feigning of injuries whenever he gets into trouble in a big match... followed invariably by a miraculous recovery once he's had a break and time to disrupt his opponent's momentum. Probably the illness is just an excuse, yes.

And for Nadal and Medvedev the stakes are pretty high, they need to be back for the French Open. Nadal because it's his best chance of another slam, and going 22-20 over Djokovic, and knowing that if he doesn't win it, Djokovic is most likely to win and go level 21-21 in slams with him. And Medvedev because as it stands he won't play Wimbledon, and so will lose out on a huge potential haul of ranking points there, so he needs to make the most he can at Roland Garros.

I'd agree that it's 50-50, it's impossible to tell them apart really. For a long time it looked like Arsenal were all-but-guaranteed fourth place, but then they started throwing points away all over the place, and it looked like they'd blown their chance... but now they are back and winning tougher games. I have absolutely no idea which of them will finish fourth. The only thing I'm confident about is that Man U won't make the top four.