Top-down assembly line processing is a remnant from the rusty industrial age, and no longer works in the fluid, spreadable hoodoo environments of the information era.
The Russian is yet to win a grand slam and wasted another opportunity to end that particular hoodoo when losing to compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova in the French Open final last month.
Hurston was a trained anthropologist as well as a writer, and her stories about fruit pickers and hoodoo workers in sawmill and turpentine camps create an intimate portrait of southern black rural life.
The Cardiff Blues veteran and double-Grand Slam winner lost his first five games as Wales skipper in 2003 and 2004 but broke his captaincy hoodoo when he led Wales to a 26-13 win over Scotland at Murrayfield in 2009.