Bagel Bites: Trust no one.

Internet ephemera from the tennis world and beyond. Have something you want to include? Join the Discord  – we have a really nice and active community growing there – or hmu on Bluesky.

• In this house, we support and stan and admire and gaze upon with great pride and respect one Mr. Tumaini Carayol. The sweetest human being you'll ever meet and a phenomenal writer and journalist who has established a great rapport with the players. His knowledge base is second-to-none and only outmatched by his recall of the best of tennis lore. He's the best. And here he is ahead of the US Open with Emma Raducanu. (The Guardian)

Only one month ago at Wimbledon, the discourse surrounding the 22-year-old reached diabolical lows. Even though her on-court performances were strong, it was impossible to escape the speculation surrounding her personal life. In the bowels of Center Court at the Cincinnati Open, I offer my own blunt perspective: I have never cringed as much as I did while watching people trying to pry into her romantic relationships at the All England Club. “Yeah, and Cam’s questions, too,” Raducanu responds, laughing. “That was terrible. Terrible.”

She was referring to her compatriot Cameron Norrie’s post-match press conference, when a reporter asked him whether he was dating Raducanu. Norrie, who was being supported in his player box that day by his long-term partner, was as baffled as he was bemused. For Raducanu, though, such brazen intrusiveness from strangers has simply become part of her everyday life. “I know, I know,” she says, smiling. “I guess it comes with the territory, people being so curious. I think they’re more curious about this news than any tennis results and tennis news. But I just keep to myself, my private life to one side. It’s always funny when people try to find something out, but I try not to read into it so much.”

• I popped onto NCR to reminisce with Ben about our first meeting at the Cincinnati Open, how the tournament has evolved, and why the current broken media landscape has driven me back to blogging and community building. (Podbean)

• My player of the week is absolutely Terence Atmane, he of the self-reported IQ of 156 – what is it with the French and self-reporting their IQs? – he, the owner of one of the largest Pokemon collections in France and who GAVE JANNIK SINNER A POKEMON CARD IN THE TUNNEL BEFORE THEIR MATCH LOL, he of the incredibly charming interviews and vibes. Fingers crossed that we don't get milkshake ducked here but I want him to win everything on court and in life. Here's L'Equipe on his incredible run to the semifinals as a qualifier.
• Bro wrote "FERMI'S PARADOX" on the camera, I MEAN. (ATP)
• He's now set to play US Open qualies, which...I'm annoyed! (jon_wertheim/Twitter)

• Giri Nathan's book on Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, "Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis", is coming out next week on Aug. 19. As your resident ATP Outsider, I'm looking forward to digging into it and learning about these two unheralded up and coming players.

• As a reminder, pre-ordering a book always helps the authors a ton, and if you can, do it at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore. You can also help by contacting your local library(ies) and asking them to buy the book for their collections. My library website has an online form that allows you to suggest up to five books a month for them to bring in. Yours might too! But don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. You can buy the book on Amazon, no will judge you lol. Just...read. Reading is fundamental.
• Here is your periodic reminder that libraries are fucking awesome. Here's what I currently have checked out (they're all great) – yes, my personality is very obvious:
  • "Paper: Paging Through History" by Mark Kurlansky - It's literally the history of paper
  • "The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" by Roland Allen - It's literally the history of notebooks
  • "Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream" by Megan Greenwell - it's literally about how private equity sucks balls

• After Iga won the first set of the semifinals against Rybakina, she walked to her chair and took off her hat before waving her finger "no" to the cameraman. He backed up but didn't turn away until she started to take off her shirt to change. Now, while I want to emphasize that there's nothing – or at least, there should be nothing salacious about a woman in a sports bra, while we're here let me just vent that it is wild to me that any cameraman/producer in women's tennis thinks it's perfectly ok to (1) film a shirt change, (2) do foot closeups, and (3) film cooooooonstant closeups of the players tucking the ball in their skirt. You know what you're doing and we know what you're doing. Come on. Stop it.
• Look, players, you're not always going to be happy about your match scheduling. And for the most part, I think fans are going to be sympathetic to those complaints. But for the second tournament in a row, we saw a c0mplaint that seemed to fall on deaf ears. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina didn't earn much sympathy in Toronto when he earnestly complained about his match being scheduled at 11am and neither did Anna Kalinskaya this week. She posted a note on social media lamenting the decision because her match finished late and, though she would have a complete off day the next day, her REM sleep had been disrupted and she couldn't possibly be ready for her 11am start the next next day against Swiatek. I'm not sure complaining that you have 36 hours of rest during a WTA 1000 is going to land. (Reddit)
• Much was attempted to be made about Swiatek's scheduling in Cincinnati, where she pretty much got the 11am start for every possible match. I think it's absurdly weird that this was raised as though it was some sort of issue. If I'm a tournament referee or tournament director, and I have a marquee player asking for the 11am slot – which few players actually like – and it's a time slot that also works for her local time zone (Europe), I would jump at her offer and give her a $500 gift card for the tournament shop. To quote Aldo Raine:

• In case you're wondering if I'm full of crap that most players hate the 11am slot, Tumaini asked around this week and wrote another great piece. (The Guardian)

Raducanu finds it far easier to be scheduled as the first match of the day, so she does not have to worry about the start time. Not everyone agrees, Daniil Medvedev for one. The Russian says: “I was talking to my team today. I was like: ‘When I’m 35, I might just boycott the 11am matches.’ I’ll be like: ‘I’m not coming. Walkover.’ Like: ‘Yeah, I didn’t wake up. Sorry, guys.’ In my opinion, 11 is so early. You have to wake up at 6.30 in the morning, where, if you play at night, you wake up at 9am. So it changes the perspective of the match. It’s crazy mentally.”

• Oh nooooo, someone call the police! (Reddit)
• D'arcy Maine goes long on Venus Williams ahead of her return to the US Open. (ESPN)

She has made it to the title match in every other singles, doubles and mixed doubles draw at all of the Slams -- a mind-blowing stat, to be sure -- but has only ever made it to the quarterfinals in mixed doubles in New York. While some see this year's revamped event as more of a glorified exhibition, it's far more than that to Williams.

"It's kind of a priority for me to play that because it's the one thing I've never done," Williams said. "I've always been very close to the winner's circle of every single thing in this career I've had. But that's the one piece.

"So my goal is that Reilly will carry the team. He's been informed, and he's got his assignment."

• Very cool: There's a mural in Brooklyn of Frances Tiafoe and Leylah Fernandez made out of tennis balls. (jvycreations on Instagram)
• Man, even Su-Wei is calling it an exhibition – or at least she tried to. (sw.hsieh on Instagram)
• Speaking of that Mixed Doubles "exbitistion", we're totally not going to know what the field even looks like until the morning of the event (Tuesday). As of this writing, three of the four – Paolini, on court now, could make it 4/4 – Cincinnati finalists (Monday) are supposed to get to NYC and be ready to play by Tuesday night? Here's the current status as of 3:24pm Sunday. (ESPN)
• Aryna Sabalenka – who is not playing the exbitistion – is already in New York and on the practice courts at the US Open. She's prepping for a high-stakes title defense. If she doesn't defend, she'll go Slamless this year, which isn't a big deal at all, but we've been told for decades that it's a sin against the Lord if you're No.1 without a Slam so I'm just trying to be consistent with what the super-always-correct people say. (usopen on Instagram)
• Going to the US Open this year? Read up on El Jon's tips for the most grueling Slam of the season. (SI.com)

• Having been super impressed and loving WEAPONS, I made the mistake of watching BARBARIAN last night IN MY AIRBNB HOUSE. It was great, no notes. It's leaving Netflix at the end of the month, if you are so inclined. (YouTube)

• I also watched DR. STRANGELOVE on TCM, and damn if that movie isn't thoroughly funny.