Bagel Bites: What's the (one) point of this?

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• Previously on The Bagel: This GIF basically:

• Honestly, I probably quote THE DEPARTED more than any Scorsese movie despite the fact that I've convinced myself that I really do not like THE DEPARTED and I do not take it seriously but also I have rewatched THE DEPARTED more than any Scorsese movie. Sigh. It's complicated.

• So the story of the first three days of the week has to be the rousing success of the Australian Open's second edition of The 1 Point Slam, which I used to call the No Point Slam, but I guess I have to eat my words now. Because I stayed up to watch it last night and it was very fun and very good and frankly, I hope AO makes it the staple of its Week Minus One because it's a pretty flawless concept. I also hope that no other Slam or tournament does it because if there's one thing tennis loves to do, it's copy-pasta until the dead horse is beaten to a bloody pulp. Do I have confidence that tennis can maintain this discipline?

• So what was the 1 Point Slam other than to completely infuriate the copy-editor in me? It's a 64-player knock-out bracket – 1R byes for the Top 16 seeds – comprised of professionals, amateurs, and celebrities, and matches are...one point. Each match starts with Rock, Paper, Scissors, with the winner earning the choice of serve or receive. Professional players only get ONE SERVE. Amateurs, get the standard two. It's winner take-all for $1 million AUD. You can watch the whole thing here and I highly recommend you do. It's fun:

• The genius of the event is taking away second serves from the pros. That changed the dynamic of the whole thing for our familiar faces, nearly all of whom opted to receive if they won the toss because the stakes were just too high on serve. As Coco, Frances, and Jannik found out:

• In the end, it was WTA No.117 Joanna Garland of Chinese Taipei, who just won an ITF in Canberra but lost in the first round of AO qualifying, knocking out Zverev and Kyrgios to make the final against amateur Jordan Smith of New South Wales. Now this is where things get complicated: IT'S ONE MILLION DOLLARS. That is life-changing money for both these two – Garland, 24, has made less than 500K in her career, and Smith who would like to buy a house in Sydney and have you SEEN those housing prices?
• But let's be honest: there has to be some code among the pros that if they play an amateur in the final they gotta tank it. I'm sorry, but you just have to. This could have been a lot of more awkward if, like, one of the Top 16 seeds made the final. They are almost all LITERAL millionaires. The 16th seed was Maria Sakkari. She's made nearly $14M USD. Even Laura Pigossi, who was a Top 16 seed, has made over $1M USD in prize money. And yes, I know that making over $1M does not mean you're necessarily a millionaire, but you get my point.

• Jordan Smith won the final when Garland pulled an early shot wide and that's all good. It is kind of a bummer that Garland, who was the unlikely star of the show because she actually PLAYED the points, won't get anything for her troubles – like I said, she lost in qualifying. But maybe give her a swag bag or a bag of snakes or SOMETHING.
• Anyway, it was great and I'm glad I stayed up for it, though more that later. It's just so much better than a hit and giggle amongst players, which should be reserved for Kids Day type things, and infinitely better than those fake practice matches AO was pushing in years past. 10 for 10, no notes.

• And in case it needed to be said clearly: between the United Cup mixed doubles last week and this exo this week, well there's two easy examples of instances where men and women can compete against each other and it's actually awesome and a benefit to the sport and participants.
• Some more fun highlights:

• Onto business: The Australian Open main draw will take place later today. I'll shoot out the draw when it's up. If you're a real sicko, you can watch it here. (YouTube)
• Oh noooooooooo: Sebastian Ofner thought he won his qualifying match against Stanford's Nishesh Basavareddy in a third-set tiebreak 7-1. BUT final-set tiebreaks go to 10 in Melbourne and OF COURSE he went on to lose after ACTUALLY having match points. Coooooold celly from Basavareddy but let's honest, that is precisely what happened here:

• Casper Ruud said his wife could go into labor any day now, and he's ready to hop on the first flight home to Norway whenever that happens. Now that's a MAN. (Yahoo)

• Not the season-start Casper would want though. He'll head to Melbourne with a 1-2 record: a win over Alex de Minaur and losses to Jakub Mensik and Fabian Marozsan.
• Julia Roberts' charisma is off the charts and this is an incredible reminder of what a true movie star looks/feels/acts like. They don't make em like this anymore:

• Imagine being rich and just deciding to give away all the money you don't at all need in order to help causes that need it. Just imagine:

The Trevor Project receives $45M from MacKenzie Scott after difficult years and federal funding cuts

The nonprofit Trevor Project received a $45 million gift from billionaire MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025.

AP NewsTHALIA BEATY

• Not unrelated: The Top 10 players banding together has more value and leverage than whatever photoshoot-driven after school club does. There's some good details – specifics! who knew! – in Russell Fuller's report. (BBC)
• The fact that they're being led by former WTA Chairman and CEO Larry Scott – he was at the helm when Venus pushed for equal prize money at Wimbledon, and was the architect of the biggest WTA schedule revamp in 2009 ("the Roadmap"), which shortened the season (yes, it used to be longer!) and looked to create a healthier environment for players while improving marketability – makes me more inclined to believe the advice their getting is pretty solid – though yes, we're going to have to ignore how he destroyed the PAC-10 after he left the WTA.
• In particular, I love that they are asking the Slams to contribute to the ATP and WTA benefits pools. From Russ' report:

Players are asking each of the Slams to pay 22% of their revenue in prize money by 2030. That, they argue, would match the commitment made by the ATP and WTA Tour at their combined 1000 events.

Their hope is the Slams will each commit 16% of their revenue this year, with the figure rising by 1.5% per annum until 2030.

In addition to a prize money increase, players want to be consulted on scheduling and key decisions, such as the move to a Sunday start everywhere bar Wimbledon. They have proposed the formation of a Grand Slam Player Council, similar to those on the ATP and WTA Tour, to evaluate any new plans which impact them.

Project RedEye is also making the case for the Grand Slams to contribute to pension, healthcare and maternity benefits.

It argues that after stripping out bonus payments, the ATP and WTA pay about $40m a year in benefits.

To match that sum, and to allow for inflation, they want each of the Slams to pay $12m (£9.15m) in benefits per annum by 2030. The target for this year is $4m, with a $2m increase expected each year.

• More notes from Russ's report: The US Open and Australian Open are already near the players' revenue/prize money demands, while Wimbledon and Roland Garros are seen as lagging. Players will revisit the whole thing after the Australian Open.
• Andrea Vavassori qualified in singles in Adelaide and beat Gabriel Diallo. (ATP)
• Good read: "The junior Slam champion who match-fixed to 'escape' tennis." (BBC)

• It is January 14, 2026 and the ATP has announced the 2027 ATP Calendar. This is like Starbucks selling pumpkin spice lattes in June. (ATP)
• H/t Discord Joe: There's an Andre Agassi docuseries in the works for Apple TV. (Deadline)

• H/t Discord Harlan: LIV Golf is on life support, the PGA Tour has pretty much won, and let this be a reminder that playing a sport purely for money is absolutely not fun or rewarding at all. History and record books and prestige matter. Exos will never fulfill you. And that is something that professional athletes threatening to form a competing tour/league should remember. (Slate)

LIV had a few problems all this time, though. Most importantly, nobody cared, no matter how hard the Saudis tried to make it seem otherwise. The tour’s TV ratings never rose above the level of embarrassing, even as it got a deal with Fox Sports. LIV generated a lot of social media hype, but the golf reporter Joel Beall, in his book about the PGA Tour–LIV fight, Playing Dirty, talked with social media analysts who estimated that anywhere between 16 percent and 71 percent of LIV chatter on Facebook and Twitter was from inauthentic accounts. Why the lack of humanoid excitement? The tour’s main competitive innovations were 54-hole tournaments rather than 72 and the establishment of teams that LIV’s executives just assumed people would care about. Few people did, although somewhere I’m sure there’s a man who will tell his grandkids about the three times he watched the Crushers. LIV’s events were on second-rate golf courses, and the competition did not generate widespread interest. (Its own talent didn’t help here: Rahm, for example, told reporters that his streak of Top 10 finishes on LIV was not really that impressive.)

.... There is no great moral win here. The PGA Tour ended that possibility when it tried to make a deal with a rival it had once criticized on the grounds of being insensitive to Sept. 11 survivors. With the exception of a few dozen professional golfers who have taken advantage of this geopolitical market distortion to make a lot more money, nobody is better off for LIV Golf having come into the world. Fans have missed out on three years and counting of watching the best players compete head-to-head on a regular basis, and a nation-state has burned billions of dollars that it could have spent doing literally anything else. Whether it continues to spend cash or finally ends this charade, nobody involved should be proud of their work.

• I feel you Madison:

• Also h/ts to Discord Carrie, Discord Grey, Discord Roberto and Discord Iga! Forgot to credit you for finds in the last couple of Bagels and I'm sorry!
• Edited to add: Lol, I forgot to explain why I was awake. My sister left a bottle of Magnesium Glycinate at home and the last two nights I have taken them a few hours before going to bed and each time I stayed up super late and then woke up super chill but groggy. I don't know if this normal or not. Maybe I should take them earlier? I don't know!