Bagel Bites: Excess baggage

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• Previously on The Bagel: Kelly Clarkson mogged.
• Round 2 is done! TLDR: The women's favorites are looking scary good, Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys – FIVE MATCH POINTS SAVED – stay surviving, and despite ONCE AGAIN playing a Slam without both Jannik and Carlos in the draw, OMG these boys CANNOT keep themselves together.
  • 12 Men's seeds out after Round 2: [3] Felix Auger-Aliassime, [4] Novak Djokovic, [6] Alex De Minaur [10] Arthur Fils, [12] Rafael Jodar, [13] Lorenzo Musetti, [16] Brandon Nakashima, [19] Casper Ruud (w/d), [23] Andrey Rublev, [29] Cameron Norrie, [30] Matteo Arnaldi, [32] Ignacio Buse.
  • 6 Women's seeds out after Round 2: [12] Belinda Bencic, [20] Maja Chwalinska, [27] Barbora Krejcikova, [28] Sara Bejlek, [30] Jelena Ostapenko, [32] Maria Sakkari.
• The surprising aspect of the men's upsets is how they impacted inarguably in-form players: Cincinnati champion Arthur Fils, Montreal finalist Brandon Nakashima, Washington finalist and Montreal semifinalist Rafael Jodar. And it's just the way it all happened. Jodar won FOUR GAMES. Nakashima got routined by Michelsen. Fils hit a wall and won five games in the last two sets of a four-set loss.

• So here's where we're at as Round 3 begins on Friday:

• Color me impressed: Rybakina, Pegula, Gauff, Swiatek, N0soka, Muchova, Townsend, Anisimova. And keep an eye on Madison Keys and Naomi Osaka, who have been battling and winning. Remember the last time Madison Keys saved MPs at a hard courd Slam? Yeah. Andreeva and Sabalenka also looking strong, though not sure they've been tested.
• Zheng Qinwen played her best match in over a year – basically since her elbow injury – in a three-set win over Yulia Putintseva. The win should boost her back into the Top 100. It was great to see that focus and fire again.
• Gauff's 6-4, 7-6(5) win over Paula Badosa was one to circle. Paula came into the match with a 5-3 H2H and, yes, she isn't the same Paula as World No.2 Paula, but that doesn't always matter when you're facing someone you've owned. Check out Coco's match-point celebration:

• This win gave her a big boost, one she didn't even necessarily need given her confidence and form right now. If she proceeds to run through her draw, this match will be the Gold Star in her Super Mario speedrun.

• Yoooo it's going to be BONKERS if we get Coco vs. Alex in Round 4. And on that note, let's talk a bit about the Eala Effect.
• Last December, as the 2026 tennis season was just days away, I was streaming on Twitch and, as I am prone to do on that platform, I was rambling. At one point, I remember saying "If there is any tennis writer or editor who gives a shit about clicks and traffic and you are not writing about Alex Eala every day, you should be fired for being bad at your job."
• I am not at all pretending that I kickstarted this Eala tidal wave of coverage and content. I know I am not because literally six people watch my streams lol – Hi famchat! But here we are, nine months later, and good luck opening your social media feeds and not seeing something on Alex.
• It's an incredible phenomenon to witness and it makes me happy, specifically for Alex – who could not be more level-headed and grounded and seemingly born to bear this responsibility – and for Filipinos (I'm including the whole diaspora here), who are just the best.
• I have nothing but love and respect for Filipinos. I have literally never met a Filipino and not thought well goddamn if you aren't one of the coolest/most talented/nicest/hardest working/hilarious people I've ever met. I want nice things for Filipinos because they deserve it. They are the backbone of so many industries and the life of so many parties. Swaggapinos are everything.

• I love that so many people are now discovering this. Well, maybe "discover" isn't the right word here. Discover implies you ventured out and found something that no one knew existed. This ain't that. This is just....opening your eyes. Because in case you haven't realized it, the Filipino diaspora is HUGE. And chances are, they're very much a part of your daily life.
• And slaying karaoke at any casual event near you:

• So yes, I understand the tsunami of articles that are being commissioned about the Eala Effect, which are all effectively the same article: "HOLY SHIT THERE ARE A LOT OF FILIPINO PEOPLE CHEERING ON THIS TENNIS PLAYER!" Personally, I am waiting for this first wave of Eala content to run its course. Cuz at this point...it's kinda starting to feel weird. Like...some people are treating this like it's some wacky crazy phenomenon, when really, it's only wacky if you just didn't ever notice Filipinos?

• Eala is tennis' Linsanity moment, writes Michelle Steele. The question is whether people learned anything about what Linsanity left on the table. (Substack)

The stories about her are really compelling - what’s harder to find is coverage of what that audience is signaling: Filipino-American sports fans, and more broadly, Asian Americans are audiences that sport media hasn’t fully built for, the commercial opportunity is measurable and the returns are visible in the data.

Looping back to the WTA commissioner’s Caitlin Clark comparison. At the height of her craze, you couldn’t shoot a basketball without hitting a Caitlin Clark story. The more important - and slower - realization was that Clark’s audience actually represented a very big market for women’s hoops content that existed long before Clark arrived. As Clark’s agent Erin Kane told me, the fire was there, she was the gasoline.

Eala is the gasoline for Filipino-Americans - and for the 10-15 million strong Filipino diaspora wherever it lives. But she is also a signal to sports media about how to think about those communities more broadly, Asian-American and otherwise.

• Max Eisenbud thinks Alex Eala will be the second-highest paid female athlete in 2027. I'm guessing he thinks the only one ahead of her is fellow IMG client Coco Gauff. To paraphrase Li Na, "make her rich", Max. (Forbes)

Tiu and their wife, Felize Camille, moved to the United States two years ago so the two of them could legally marry and live out of the closet. Same-sex marriage is not legal in the Philippines, and the couple had to hide their relationship.

They once went on a secret date to a printing class in Singapore, where they learned risograph, a style of printmaking using fluorescent ink and an office-sized printer. A few years later, Tiu started Bad Student.

“It’s the idea of being bad at something first before you get good at it,” Tiu said about the studio’s name. “I’m always a student, always learning, but giving my permission to be bad gives me this freedom to just explore it and have fun and do what I want.”

• On the topic of highest-paid athletes, Forbes released their top earning tennis players. Among active players – sorry Serena – Carlos Alcaraz ($38M) and Coco Gauff ($28M) are the highest off-court earners on each tour, which translates into the most marketable. Of course, Serena trumps them both, with $40M. GOATs gonna GOAT.
  • 1. Jannik Sinner: $58M (On-court: $23M/Off-court: $35M)
  • 2. Carlos Alcaraz: $53.7M ($15.7M/$38M)
  • 3. Serena Williams: 40.1M ($0.1M/$40M)
  • 4. Aryna Sabalenka: 36.1M ($13.1M/$23M)
  • 5. Coco Gauff: $35.5M ($7.5M/$28M)
  • 6. Novak Djokovic: $30.2M ($5.2M/$25M)
  • 7. Zheng Qinwen: $22.6M ($0.6M/$22M)
  • 8. Iga Swiatek: $20.5M ($5.5M/$15M)
  • 9. Alexander Zverev: $18.7M ($13.7M/$5M)
  • 10. Elena Rybakina: $17.4M ($11.4M/$6M)
• I would be very surprised if both Naomi and Alex aren't on this list next year.

• A bunch of marquee tennis players attended a pre-tournament party sponsored by Draft Kings and that's pretty gross. Can't take money from them but can give them free marketing? The ITIA is looking into it. (Bounces)

• There's a lot of discourse around the US Open's noise and ettiquete and I think this piece strikes a good balance of the debate. (Town and Country)

“You do want to make sure spectators know what the experience is supposed to be and what the decorum is for it,” says Post. “That’s in the hands of the people issuing the tickets and the ushers who are meant to help crowd control. It’s a lot on the establishments that host these events to determine the type of event they’re going to be throwing and make the atmosphere known.”

Etiquette, Post says is “thinking about our impact on the people around us and how we can make that a positive one and not a negative one. It doesn’t take much.” At the heart of the U.S. Open is tennis; it is “two competitors playing at their best and trying to be their best. They train all year, every day. Their whole life, their livelihood, is based on this. You don’t want to be the lone voice that’s really loud in a quieter place,” says Post.

• Yes, tennis needs to get out of its own way and out of its own ass and stop the pearl clutching – it's sports, it's a tournament held in America, it's fine if it's the anti-Wimbledon. IT'S AN AMERICAN SPORTING EVENT. The rowdiness and energy is, in many ways, the direct result of being more open, being more accessible – prices notwithstanding – and opening up the country club to let people who might not otherwise come to a tennis tournament have a good time.
• But, there has to be limits, and the most American test is simply this: at what point does the free-for-all impact the value of the product? If people pay a lot of money for tickets and have a shitty time and take to social media and tell everyone the ticket isn't worth it, well then there you. The USTA will set the line accordingly.
• Alternatively: listen to the players. I think Jess and Naomi were really good on this. I don't care how much you paid for your tickets or your suits, you can't be there disrespecting the athletes:

• People are big mad at the inundation of influencers and, I have a take on this and it may surprise you: it's...fine? I'm the least pr0-influencer person you'll find, but who am I to gatekeep? I WAS A BLOGGER. I literally spent a year tweeting non-stop about my experience at tennis tournaments and cracking jokes about players, and picking up a few credentials here and there. And not to toot my own horn, but...I turned out ok? Like, I think I was, on balance, a positive for the sport?
• All that is to say, I'm not keen to paint with a broad brush here. What is an "influencer" really? Some buy tickets, get dressed up, and make TikTok and Instagram content. Some are paid by brands – or even the tournament itself – to also make content. And then there are some who are genuinely trying to break into media, using the influencer route as their lane – because tennis people don't understand the distinction between influencers and content creators – but producing content that has more meat, that isn't built on trying to sell you something.

• And even within all these different categories, there is a wiiiiiide range of quality. People seemed to genuinely enjoy Morgan Riddle's content. I got genuinely excited when Coach Jackie went to the National Bank Open. There are newer tennis content creators that I think are great. There are others that I think are bad. And there are some that are just black licorice to me – perfectly good at what they do, just not my personal taste. This same rubric applies to professional journalists, podcasters, broadcasters, whatever. Let's not kid ourselves and create some self-serving artificial hierarchy of value.

• I've said before and I'll say it again: a healthy media ecosystem is a diverse one. There's room in the tent for all forms of media. And a little bit of humility goes a long way. If you catch yourself wondering who the hell X media type is for, maybe pause and allow for the notion that just because YOU don't value something doesn't mean IT has no value.
• I always remember something Mary Carillo said: “If you’re like me and you’re lucky enough to get somewhere in life, you’ve got to send the elevator back down. That’s the rule." (WTA)
• I also always remember what a media director told me on the first day of my first tennis credential: "So you're the blogger, huh? I've never credentialed a blogger before. Don't screw it up." (TMZ)

• I am incredibly biased here – I'm quoted quite heavily – but Reem Abulleil has a pretty thorough rundown of Naomi Osaka's fashion journey. (The National)

Osaka has been using her passion for fashion as a form of self-expression. The 28-year-old is outspoken when it comes to topics that matter to her, but is generally reserved and quiet off the court.

The two ways in which she is at her loudest is when she’s pummeling a tennis ball or putting together a carefully curated outfit. One of the loudest statements she ever made came in the form of seven masks she wore during the 2020 US Open, each carrying the name of a black victim of racial violence.

She had the seven masks with her before the event even began and drew motivation from her mission to display a different name with every match she won. She went on to win seven matches that tournament to clinch the title and shed light on racial injustice in America.

• Owen Lewis – who, belated congrats on winning the International Tennis Writers Association Tom Perrotta Prize for Tennis Journalism!!! – wonders what exactly is the point of Arthur Ashe Stadium. (Second Serve)

A half hour into my first trip to the US Open, my neck bearing a precious press credential and my ass in a press seat high up on Arthur Ashe Stadium, I wondered why my eyes were unfocused. It wasn’t that the match was boring. Jessica Pegula spurned eight break points against Elena-Gabriela Ruse in the third game, injecting an otherwise lopsided match with intrigue as all the missed chances hung over Pegula’s head (or so I imagined, as someone who would have proceeded to lose the set 6–1). When Pegula connected sweetly with the ball, it looked like she was half-volleying winners from the baseline. So why did it feel like I was watching from a blimp?

• Another great interview with Julie Kliegman, the author of "Finding Renee Richards, this time with Giri Nathan. They really had to wrestle with a lot while writing the book and I find it all fascinating. (Defector)

I was really anxious going into it. Well, it was justified in a sense, because the stuff she was saying to me was really out there. It wasn't just garden-variety transphobia. It surprised me. I'm sure you've had reporting calls where you barely say anything and they just kind of go and go and go. It was one of those. The funny thing is—well, it's not actually funny—but I pay humans to transcribe my interviews because I don't want to transcribe them myself, and I also don't like what AI comes back with, and the main transcriber for the book, they're trans, and I emailed them, "Hey, do you want to do this Martina one?" And they were like, "Nope, I thought about this, and I thought to myself, if Julie interviews Martina, that is where I draw the line. I don't want to subject myself to that."

It was such a bizarre couple of calls. She really—part of her believes she's not transphobic. I think she literally said, "We can't make Renée stop using the women's room or whatever, nor would I ever want her to." But she's also talking about "nipple goop" that comes out of trans people when they try to breastfeed and all this really hateful stuff that I didn't even know how to like ... she was talking about the "trans lobby" and stuff, and I wasn't even good at keeping up in the moment and being like, "What do you mean by that, Martina? Can you say more?" I was just so flabbergasted. 

• Front Office Sports reports Indian Wells, Cincy, and D.C. might take prediction market deals. Sigh.

• H/t Discord Grey: Linda Noskova is a WWE fan??? (Instagram)

• The US Open's hardest working player is a 38-year-old French man. (Sportico)

Being a professional tennis player is a grind, but nobody on the ATP or WTA Tours has been grinding more this year than 38-year-old Adrian Mannarino.

Mannarino has played 28 pro tournaments so far in 2026, more than any player in the men’s or women’s U.S. Open main draws. He was totally unaware that he was the holder of this superlative.

“I didn’t know. … I didn’t even feel that I’ve played much,” Mannarino said. “It is even possible? I don’t think I’m at 28.”

The chasm between journalism and insiderdom has never been wider

Pablo Torre’s reporting into the Clippers will be remembered for generations, proving the true value of journalism over insiderdom.

Awful AnnouncingMatt Yoder

What is it we value as sports fans and media consumers? Will we default to the bright, shiny object that satisfies our rapidly shrinking attention spans? Or will we reward journalists with our eyeballs, our subscriptions, and our support, telling these companies that this work truly creates change and drives progress?

The money being invested in sports is reaching absurd new heights. Political involvement in sports is becoming increasingly complex. Surely there are more avenues for exploration than ever before in the sports world that don’t involve trade rumors, injury designations, and free agent signings.

Insiderdom is reporting what people in power want you to know. Journalism is reporting what people in power don’t want you to know. And there will always be a difference.

• My main takeaway from this is that Raygun has never actually seen INCEPTION. (The Athletic)
• Words matter: Brian Phillips on the renaming of America. (The Ringer)

Every political movement tries to influence language to some degree; the more totalitarian the movement, the more linguistic control it attempts to seize. When George Orwell wrote 1984, he made it clear that the Party’s most sinister act—more than the surveillance, the propaganda, the enforced scarcity, or the torture—was the rewriting of the language itself to make it harder for people to conceive of dissent.

• Spritz's are good, LONG LIVE THE SPRITZ! (NY TIMES)

• Rant: I've known this for a while but few shopping experiences distilled the utter morass of the online shopping advice industrial complex than my quest to buy a new suitcase yesterday. Long setup short: I've been putting off buying a new suitcase until I get to Japan in October, hoping my beat up Ol' Reliable would last two more trips. I love Japanese luggage, the simplicity, quality, and the price point are unmatched. BUT, Ol' Reliable broke not just once but twice on my last two trips – shoutout British Airways and American Airlines – rendering it unusable for my long-haul to Asia later this month. So I was in need of a stop-gap measure.
• I ended up settling on something I'm more than happy with – it was cheaper than the comparable AWAY which are very good suitcases that I like but do not love – so I'm stoked. But in the course of just poking around and looking for "Best of" or "Recommended" product reviews/lists, I was reminded that 95% of those lists are absolute BULLSHIT because they are not "Best of [Category]" they are, AT BEST, "Best of [Category] Sold on Amazon".
• Because out of curiosity I looked for "Best Japanese Suitcases/Luggage" lists, and the lists that popped back were absolute bupkis. They all recommended stuff that I have never seen sold at a reputable store in Japan – and trust me, I know my J-Luggage brands – but low and behold they were all sold at Amazon. Translation: this list is baloney but please click and use my Amazon Affiliate link so I get a kickback on the sale.

• This isn't a groundbreaking realization, I know. It's not even a realization. I knew it. But it was a particularly insidious version of Amazon Affiliate marketing because the writer/blogger/influencer/scammer is taking advantage of a person's assumed ignorance of the market they're researching.
• I hate it. I hate that people can't just, you know, honestly help people. I hate that as consumers we have to go into every single thing assuming we're getting scammed somehow and trying to figure out how. I hate that whether we like it or not, we're all drowning in SponCon.

• If you're near a theater that shows IMAX 70MM, good news: THE ODYSSEY has been extended through the end of September. Grab those tix ASAP. It's worth it. (AV Club)
• Bop of the Day: RIP Cassandra Wilson. STOP TAKING THE WRONG PEOPLE, LORD.