Bagel Bites: FOREEEEEEEEE!

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Well, that was a much longer blog-break than I had anticipated. The last time I was around these parts, we were all priming ourselves for the Australian Open semifinals. Since then, I had a lovely few days in War Ravaged Portland, Oregon, Elena Rybakina and Carlos Alcaraz picked up the Melbourne hardware, I got the flu for the first time in years and was down for the count for over a week, the Olympics got underway and I became the world's biggest Ilia Malinin objector.

Yet, when I emerged from all the phlegm and fever, I stepped outside only to realize that the world had changed. The skies were bluer, the air sweeter, and the In-N-Out cheeseburger infinitely more scrumptious. Because yes, dear reader, a new timeline has opened up, one where only good things happen and beauty is everywhere, even in that janky floating plastic bag.

FOR KAROLINA MUCHOVA HAS BECOME A WTA 1000 CHAMPION.

What a time to be fuckin' alive.

• A quick rundown of the post Australian Open champions:
  • WTA
    • Abu Dhabi (500): Sara Bejlek – The youth movement on the WTA continues to build, with the 20-year-old Czech qualifier beating Jelena Ostapenko and Ekaterina Alexandrova en route to her first WTA title.

• Cluj-Napoca (250): Sorana Cirstea – Fairytale finish for Cirstea, who beat Emma Raducanu in an all-Romanian final (kinda!). It's her 4th career title and two of those have come in the last two years. She'll hang up her racquet after this season.
• Ostrava (250): Katie Boulter – Not a title run anyone would have expected after Boulter's struggles, but good for her. She zoomed back into the Top 100 by winning Title No.4. And she put some pressure on her fiancé to step it up.
• Doha (1000): KAROLINA MUCHOVA – ...KAROLINA MUCHOVA!!!!

• ATP
  • Montpellier (250): Felix Auger-Aliassime – Eight of Felix's nine ATP titles have come indoors and he's now won more titles than Milos Raonic.
  • Dallas (500): Ben Shelton – With Trinity Rodman watching, Big Ben saves three championship points to edge Taylor Fritz and win his fourth ATP title.

• Rotterdam (500): Alex De Minaur – A week after Katie's Ostrava win, Demon makes his third straight Rotterdam final and finally gets his hands on the trophy, the 11th of his career. He's back up to his career-high No.6.

• Buenos Aires (250): Francisco Cerundolo – Like De Minaur, Cerundolo was playing his third Buenos Aires final and finally won it. We love a home-soil champion and we got two this week. Good vibes.
• Davis Cup: Quick shoutout to India and Wake Forest's Dhakshineswar Suresh, who took down a Tallon-and-Bobless Dutch squad to advance to the the second round, where they'll play South Korea. Led by Kwon Soonwoo, the Koreans stunned Argentina to advance. Also holy bananas, Ecuador beat Australia?

• This week: Carlos and Jannik are both in Doha. Aryna and Iga (and an additional small army) are not in Dubai.

Draws: WTA Dubai | ATP Doha | ATP Rio | ATP Delray Beach

‘Dock them ranking points’: Tahlak calls for tougher sanctions as Sabalenka and Swiatek sit out Dubai | The National

DDF Tennis Championships tournament director urges WTA to review system arguing that sporting punishments would act as a deterrent

The National NewsReem Abulleil

“I think there should be a harsher punishment on the players [for withdrawing], not just fines, they should be docked ranking points.

“I even asked the [tournament] doctor, what is the injury? He said it’s a minor injury, not one that would force her to withdraw from the tournament. And for Iga, I asked, ‘Isn’t this a strange decision?’”

• That is a quote from Dubai tournament director Salah Talak, whose 2026 edition has been decimated by withdrawals. His frustration is completely understandable, especially with Dubai-based Sabalenka being an Uber ride away. ATP Masters 1000s and WTA 1000s pay a lot of money for these licenses in exchange for the strongest player fields. When Canada got hit with a flurry of ATP withdrawals last year, we heard similar levels of frustration from tournament director Karl Hale:

• But some things really need to be kept to your inside voice. Talak's suggestion that players should be docked points when they area already subject to a zero-pointer anyway is pretty absurd. In the WTA ranking system, a zero-pointer isn't nothing. In fact, it effectively is a direct point penalty. It means that a player has to include that zero-point tournament as one of the 18 tournaments that count on their ranking – in other words, they can't replace it with a better result. As for the purported comment from the tournament doctor...yeah, that's for the WTA to sort out, because bro said WHAT.
• To beat the extremely dead horse, the issue is not the players. It's the calendar. The players have been saying this for years now. Ahead of this season, the top players on both tours have straight up said that they're going to skip select mandatory events in order to build in the breaks that they need in an otherwise unrelenting season that, with the introduction of the extended Masters/1000s and rules surrounding the 500s, has seemingly worn them down.

What can be done to fix the tennis season?

Pro tennis players often have very little time off before the next season begins -- and it can jeopardize their physical and mental health.

ESPND’Arcy Maine

Aryna Sabalenka happy to be fined for skipping tournaments in ‘insane’ tennis schedule

World No 1 Sabalenka was docked ranking points last year for failing to compete in enough events

Yahoo SportsReuters

Tennis schedule: ‘Hypocrisy’ or ‘different things’? Playing exhibitions in ‘tight’ calendar

Carlos Alcaraz said in September the tennis schedule will “kill us in some way” - but can anything be done in a calendar packed with big-money tournaments?

BBC Sport

Iga Swiatek again slams tennis calendar as ‘too intense’

Iga Swiatek criticized the relentless tennis calendar ahead of Wimbledon, saying players should not be forced to compete in more than 20 tournaments a year to maintain their rankings.

ESPND’Arcy Maine

• It sucks, but sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug. In most years, it's Doha that gets the far weaker WTA field compared to Dubai. This year, the stars aligned the other way. But if it were me, I'd spend less time highlighting what I don't have and more time highlighting what I do have. Yes, the World No.1 and No.2 are missing. But Dubai boasts the reigning Australian Open champion in Elena Rybakina – who can overtake Iga for No.2 this week –, Global Icon and best human Coco Gauff, and its last two champions in Mirra Andreeva and Jasmine Paolini, who is set to play the crowd-drawing Alex Eala in the second round. Grabbing the mic to tell the world that your tournament is weak just doesn't feel like the right play here.

• The First Serve exclusively reports that Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley will be announced as USTA CEO next week.
• Everything you need to know about how the ATP and WTA rankings work. (The Athletic)
• Italian press reports Carlos and Jannik got $1.2 million each to play Doha. (Gazzetta.it)
• It took 19-year-old Victoria Mboko 14 months to go from outside the Top 300 to the Top 10 and now we have two teens in the WTA Top 10 for the first time in 17 years. And don't look now, but WTA 1000 CHAMPION KAROLINA MUCHOVA is one spot away from a return to the Top 10. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE. (WTA)

• Coco Gauff speaks on politics with such ease because it's not the first time the words have crossed her lips. It's clear she has these discussions with her family and friends. That really seems to set her apart. (The Guardian)

“I never felt torn when I’m asked a question because it is relevant. If you’re asking me, I’ll going to tell you how I feel,” she said on Sunday.

“I think a lot of people on social media, on the other hand, like to say to stay out of politics, stay out of the things that are going on.

“You’re going to be asked these things in press. People want to hear our opinion on it. Some players choose to say ‘no comment’, which is also completely in their right. I understand that. Some prefer to state their opinion.

“I think the biggest thing I hate is when people say, ‘stay out of it’, when we’re being asked it. If you ask me, I’m going to give you my honest answer.

“When I’m asked, I have no problems. Because I’ve lived this. My grandma literally is an activist. This is literally my life. So I’m OK answering tough questions.”

• Well that's Shot of the Month sorted:

• Nice to hear Mirra Andreeva is feeling good ahead of her back-to-back title defenses in Dubai and Indian Wells. She advanced in her opener on Tuesday after Daria Kasatkina withdrew due to a right hip injury. (The National)
• So to recap the Dubai withdrawals as of Tuesday morning: Sabalenka (right hip), Swiatek (change of schedule), Muchova (change of schedule), Mboko (right elbow), Sakkari (illness), Zheng (illness), Cocciaretto (left thigh), Krejcikova (left thigh), Kasatkina (right hip). And Hailey Baptiste retired with an ab injury to Alex Eala.

• Happy trails to Stu Fraser, who is stepping down as tennis correspondent at The Times and will transitioning his coverage to golf. Here's his final tennis dispatch. (The Times UK)
• Stepping into that role at The Times will be Tom Kershaw. He reports that Wimbledon says it will keep its backstage cameras, but that all footage would be reviewed before being broadcast:

In a letter, Wimbledon highlighted the benefit of having backstage cameras in warm-down areas, but stressed that it was acutely aware of the need to prioritise players’ welfare and added that they would maintain private areas for players and their teams without cameras. It added that all footage would be reviewed by an in-house team before being broadcast, rather than being freely transmitted on TV. Wimbledon further attempted to reassure players by stating that all cameras would be clearly visible and their specific locations relayed before the championships.

• From Tom Perrotta to Mike Dickson to Mark Hodgkinson, not to mention the many who have been sidelined due to terrible illnesses, the tennis press room has taken some gut-punches over the last decade. (ITWA)
• I hope Destanee Aiava finds everything that tennis couldn't give her. There's a lot to be gained from walking away at 25. Live that life, kid. (Guardian)

• Dusting off this 2014 gem from Brian Phillips on the absolute absurdity of the Winter Olympics. (Grantland)

In the same way that certain styles of dance simulate sex, the Winter Olympics simulates scraping one’s February-chapped nostrils against the surface of a Kleenex whose aloe content is useless and reaching out for the warm escape of death. It’s an art of failed suicide attempts. 

• Buenos Aires tournament director Martin Jaite told Sebastian Fest that despite the Saudi Arabia Masters that is coming in 2028, Andrea Gaudenzi is committed to the Golden Swing and may want to upgrade Buenos Aires to an ATP 500. But would it stay a clay-court event? That all depends on what the Rio 500 does. (CLAY)

The decision is not up to the tournament, it also has to do with the ATP, which does not want to lose these weeks of clay either, because South American and Latin American players defend it.‘

’If we switch to hard courts, we will compete more strongly against the hard court tournaments,” admits Jaite, who returns to the fact of Rio’s primacy.

‘If Rio were to switch to hard courts, we would automatically have to switch to hard courts as well. But it’s not a decision for Rio, nor is it a decision for Buenos Aires. It’s a much broader negotiation, something that goes beyond the wishes of each tournament.’

• First Venus Williams and now Bianca Andreescu takes a wildcard into next week's Austin WTA 250. (ATX Open)
• Tick Tock Tennis has created a website for ATP and WTA entry lists. God bless.

• In a very badass move, the Charleston WTA 500 is set to offer equal prize money this year, making it the first standalone 500 to proactively raise prize money. Its $2.5 million compensation package doubles the amount offered in 2025:

• Lorenzo Musetti is still on the mend. He's withdrawn from Acapulco. (Instagram)

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