Constructor: Christopher Youngs
Relative difficulty: Easy (if only I knew how to spell NOVOCAINE...) (solved Downs-only)
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THEME: PUT ON A SHOW (62A: Keep up appearances, say ... or what to do with the ends of 17-, 24-, 39- and 50-Across)— ends of the theme answers are things related associated with a theatrical or movie production:
Theme answers:
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This theme seems fine. A basic "last/first-words-associated-with"-type theme. Pains have been taken to make sure that all of the relevant words appear in decidedly non-theatrical contexts in their respective answers, which is nice. Fill's a little flaccid (esp. down below, in the OVULE PETE'S ELENA RESEW area), but I've seen worse. I don't think PUT ON A SHOW is exactly equivalent to [Keep up appearances], but I guess it's close enough. It was a fairly forgettable solving experience but for two moments. First, I technically failed my Downs-only solve because I finished with a misspelled NOVOCAINE. I had it as NOVACAINE (crossing SNARES) as opposed to NOVOCAINE (crossing SNORES). It's a word I've struggled with before, which is why I convinced myself NOVACAINE was right. See, I wantedNOVOCAINE, but because I had misspelled it in the past, or else had seen it written out at some point and thought "that spelling is weird," I assumed that the spelling I wanted was the wrong spelling, so I went with the weirder-looking spelling, NOVACAINE, which honestly still looks pretty good. Maybe it's because it shares its first six letters with the familiar "NO VACANCY." Anyway, wanted the right thing, second-guessed myself and went with the wrong thing, end of story.
Relative difficulty: Easy (if only I knew how to spell NOVOCAINE...) (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- JAVASCRIPT (17A: Programming language since 1995)
- GOLDEN SET (24A: Rare tennis feat in which one player wins 24 straight points)
- PODCAST (39A: Audio download)
- GIVE PROPS (50A: Offer kudos, in modern lingo)
In tennis, a golden set is a set which is won without losing a single point. This means scoring the 24 minimum points required to win the set 6–0, without conceding any points.In professional tennis, this has occurred twice in the main draw of top-level events. It has also happened a number of times in the pre-tournament qualifier of the lowest-level events. Bill Scanlon had a golden second set in his win over Marcos Hocevar at the 1983 Delray Beach WCT event. Yaroslava Shvedova had a golden first set in her win over Sara Errani at the 2012 Wimbledon Championships. Steffi Graf came close to achieving the feat in the finals of the 1989 Virginia Slims of Washington tournament, winning the first five games to love against Zina Garrison, before winning the match 6–1, 7–5. At the 2023 Western & Southern Open, Taylor Fritz won the first five games to love in his round of sixteen match before his opponent, Dusan Lajovic, retired.
A golden match is when a player does not lose a single point in the entire match. There are five documented cases of this at low-level events. Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman did so in a 1910 amateur match in the state of Washington. Then it happened twice in France in the qualifiers of lowest-level professional events, two of them in the span of two months, both against the same 55-year-old man, Tomas Fabian. A more recent televised Golden Match involved Krittin Koaykul beating Artem Bahmet during a qualifying match at ITF World Tennis Tour event in Doha, and scoring the minimum 48 points to win. (wikipedia)
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The other thing about this puzzle that is semi-memorable is GOLDEN SET, which made me groan when I got it. Well, no, not groan. It made me make a horrible, dubious face. I got every letter of GOLDEN SET from crosses, checked all those crosses a second time, and then had to concede that yes, the answer was probably GOLDEN SET, but what the hell is that? I figured it was a mathematical term (like the "golden ratio"). After I finished, I looked at the clue and saw that it was a tennis term, which, as someone who played tennis a lot as a kid, and followed professional tennis reasonably closely for a time, was news to me. Never heard of it. When they say "rare," they aren't kidding. See the "Word of the Day" entry for details, but tl;dr it's only ever happened twice at the top level of professional play for men or women. I can't even believe there's a name for it, that's how rare it is. EGOTs are common compared to GOLDEN SETs. So I'm not in love with GOLDEN SET as the chosen (Monday) SET. Must've been pretty hard to find a six-letter set, I guess. I like HORSEY SET, myself. STEREO SET would've worked just fine. But I guess if everything else is Monday easy (and then some—seriously, zero resistance today outside this answer), then you can introduce your weirdo GOLDEN SET. But I will say that looking up GOLDEN SET did lead me to one of my favorite sports stories, out of France—it involves Tomas Fabian, the Czech player who was on the losing end of not one but two (!) golden matches (!!!) inside of two months (!!!!). Wikipedia actually contradicts itself here—the body of their GOLDEN SET write-up says both losses were golden matches, but the match details below say he actually managed to score one point in one of those matches. No matter, still a colossal (under-) achievement. Check out this French write-up of one of those matches. It's amazing:
Le Blockbuster Tomas Fabian a encore frappé ! Ce Tchèque Non Classé de 55 ans s'amuse à écumer les tournois ITF, offrant un étrange spectacle aux yeux ébahis des spectateurs puisqu'il ne sait pas du tout jouer au tennis. Le suspens est toujours à son comble quand il a la raquette à la main : va-t-il, ou non, remporter un point ou offrir un golden score à ses adversaires ? Joffrey De Schepper, tête de série n°3 (25 ans, 1035 ATP) des qualifications du tournoi de Rodez a manqué de peu le score parfait. 48 points à 1 et 21 minutes de jeu plus tard, il a pu poursuivre son chemin et retrouvera au prochain tour Pierre-Olivier Lassalle. (Tennis ACTU)Blockbuster Tomas Fabian strikes again! This 55-year-old Unranked Czech has fun roaming the ITF tournaments, offering a strange spectacle to the amazed eyes of the spectators since he doesn't know how to play tennis at all. The suspense is always at its height when he has the racket in his hand: will he, or not, win a point or offer a golden score to his opponents? Joffrey De Schepper, seeded n°3 (25 years old, 1035 ATP) in qualifying for the Rodez tournament, narrowly missed the perfect score. 48 points [to] 1 and 21 minutes of play later, he was able to continue his path and will meet Pierre-Olivier Lassalle in the next round. (Google Translate) (emph. mine)
As a 54-year-old unranked American, I adore this "55-year-old unranked Czech" who apparently has no idea what to do with his tennis racket. Tomas Fabian! Where is his Wheaties box!!? Thank you, Monday puzzle, for giving me a new sports idol.
I've heard of "kid gloves" but not DOESKIN gloves (43D: Soft leather variety). Still, I was able to infer it from just the "D" (which I had because what else is gonna go in the "SWE-E" spot?). I forgot for a second that Adobe made PHOTOSHOP, but again, crosses came to the rescue and I got a good "D'oh" out of it once I finally saw it. I would've gone to DOTED U. but got rejected and had to go to a small liberal arts college instead, boo hoo (9D: End of an academic URL). I hear they treat you pretty good at DOTED U. — MAID service, PICASSOs in every room, the works. Must be nice.
[45D: Painter with a noted "blue period"]
See you tomorrow.