SATTY = TASTY

VOLNE = NOVEL

RIHFTT = THRIFT

WKEYEL = WEEKLY

CARTOON ANSWER:

THE TENNIS PLAYER HADN’T LOST A SINGLE GAME TO HER OPPONENT AND WAS – – –

ASTNOLITWEL = ALL SET TO WIN

Good Thursday morning, fellow Jumblers! TASTY appears to be a new clue word, or we just haven’t seen it in a really long time. Either way it was instantly visible and no trouble at all. NOVEL was last used on 8/5/17 where the anagram was identical to the one we see today. THRIFT came quickly with the two T’s neatly placed next to each other leaving WEEKLY to take a few extra glances before it came into view. David did an excellent job of placing the Y before the L to keep us from quickly finding the -LY ending that is most common with adverbs making it my pick for the most difficult anagram of the day.

Looking at today’s panel made me let out a slight groan knowing that a tennis themed panel was going to be a challenge for me to talk about. Being more of an optimist, I put my feelings about tennis aside and decided to focus on what I enjoyed in today’s piece instead. Two tennis players are the main characters that we see today with the player in the background getting ready to serve the ball to her opponent. The scoreboard in the background identifies the players as KING and KENT with Billie Jean King being the obvious tennis star that Jeff has drawn. Not knowing how tennis is scored, I relied upon the dialogue of the man and woman sitting in the stands to clue me in that the game is just about over and King was going to reign supreme.

The letter layout for the final solution was very cryptic with no obvious words jumping out at me. Using the dialogue and sentence allowed WIN to come to mind as it was stated that the player hadn’t lost a single game. After crossing WIN out, TO was together and I decided to go with it as the 2-letter word. With only 6-letters remaining, ALL was clearly visible leaving SET for the finish. I’ll leave it here for today as my tennis-challenged brain has had more than enough of a workout to get me this far!!! Have a terrific Thursday, and I’ll see you tomorrow! 🎾