The Plot Thickens (Meta)

Whoa. Cool puzzle! As an occasional coder, I definitely appreciate starting at (0,0) in the bottom left, but man these coordinate puzzles always trip me up because it seems so arbitrary where to start counting from. Very helpful hint at 18A though. I still feel like I missed something because I only got STEFF from the grid and extrapolated from there. Is the IGRAF hiding somewhere?

7A/7D was a natick for me (I got it by running through the alphabet). Learned something new!

I first entered STEF CURRY, but then I thought, “It’s STEPH Curry, right?” And then: head slap! Steffi GRAF, of course. Nice aha. Thanks, Al!

Great puzzle, Al! One of my favorites.

initially, I didn’t start with the bottom left corner as 0,0. Transferring a system of plotting dots to one of plotting squares can be challenging!

And now we know the answer to "will we ever use this math stuff in real life?" Thanks Al, stay warm in Utica and great MMM as always!

Very nice puzzle, Al. Banging my head for quite a while until I realized I misread the prompt and I was looking for an athlete and not a musician. Oy.

One day I gotta remember old Beatles, the next high school math. Although counting correctly was my bane.

Cool concept, Al! I struggled with it in not treating ZEROZERO as another pairing like the others, so I ended up with STEFF like some others (and then hamstrung thinking GRAF had two Fs). Considered other origins too... really wanted it to be something like the intersection of the "O" in FOUR with the "O" in AHOY, but that obviously wasn't going to work.

Like others, didn't have the 'I' at first, and it took me a beat. "Could be Steffi Graf, but that seems kind of random OH for the love..." :-)

Very cool puzzle, Al - I love how the title, clues, and "graf" all come together - very fun "aha" for me when I got it

VERY cool metanism and love how the answer plays into the title and theme. AND... big points here - this is a sportsing person even I have heard of

Not clear from instructions if your wanted just the first name or her full name, so it took two tries since I guessed wrong and tried first her first name.

The mechanism seemed clearcut from 18A plus the numerical pairings, and once I place the origin where it had to be, everything fell into place. And the title fits so well, along with the clever wordplay on Steffi's last name. Nicely done.

Very cool! Ditto to many of the other comments... forgot the 0,0 etc. Submitted STEFFI at first and on the second try I added the last name. Never made the GRAPH connection!

This was brilliant -- thanks!

This was driving me crazy. I had STEFF for so long. I even then added (0,0) into the mix and got STEFFI. But I had somehow missed the prompt that this was an athlete. I googled Steffi athletes and saw Graf among them, tried it thinking it wouldn’t work, and now my mind is at ease. I enjoyed the interlocking number clues.

Got it! Thanks, Al!

Nice puzzle and thanks for the cool shout out.

Brilliant! Wanted the origin to start smack-dab in the center of the grid, but I realized we're just looking at Quadrant I. And, of course, the GRAPH/GRAF was an absolute lock. Thanks for the great mathy puzzle!!

I had the mechanism from square one. I just kept getting the wrong square one. I even tried using the O in the bottom line (in IOS). And using one of those wrong origins -- , I got the letters in CHRIS.

Took a while not to think of zero-zero being the grid not the first ROW (was thinking of that “I” as being in the one-one spot, so i didn’t have the I, and everything was shifted over one and not making a thing! The nudges on Muggle site cleared that up. Great idea, and fun grid!

We had the same problem as HeadinHome! Once we figured out Steffi... It took a beat to get the play on the last name... Very clever!

Needed the nudge to adjust the starting point. Finally got an answer to pop up, and enjoyed the punny answer. Thanks for the fun!

Oh, Al! So good! I was tearing my hair out thinking I was plotting incorrectly, and then thought the answer was STEFFI and just submitted that. I took a break, took a shower, and mid-shower realized what the answer had to be. I was so distracted, I shampooed but forgot to condition, and now my hair’s a mess — thanks for that. Seriously, great puzzle and great AHA!!

Thanks, Al!

At first I thought I needed remedial Jr. High math; turns out I needed remedial spelling! Fabulous, Al! Thanks!

Great puzzle, Al! I anagrammed before I realized the coordinates put the letters in grid order. Sweet construction.