Bagel Bites: The struggle is real

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.

• Previously on The Bagel: Strugglers bus incoming....

• It will never cease to amaze me how much "consistency" is treated like a slur in this quaint little world of ours. In a sport that lasts 45 weeks a year give or take, people can't seem to fight off the urge to value a seven-match run over two weeks over, you know, just winning a shit-ton of matches over the course of the whole year, let alone doing that very thing over the course of many, many consecutive years.
• Then again, I guess that's just the nature of the WTA beast: you're just not going to be able to please everyone. Deeply consistent but can't win the big one? Mid. Win multiple Grand Slams but you just don't play the way people want you to? Overrated. Peaked. Washed. Play the most beautiful game on tour but can't win a title to save your life? HAHA JOKE'S ON YOU I CAN'T MAKE THIS KAROLINA MUCHOVA QUIP ANYMORE WE ARE IN THE GOOD TIMELINE NOW HATERS.

• I value consistency. I value it a lot. Because it is just no-brainer more impressive to me if you are able to play this wacky-ass sport at an absurdly high level day in and day out. That you can adjust to the change in opponents, change in weather, change in time zones, change in surfaces, change in altitude, change in vibes, change in food, change in EVERYTHING, and still post quarterfinal and semifinal runs nearly every time you show up.
• That's a whole lot of stream-of-conscious rambling to say: Jessica Pegula is the Queen of Consistency (hella complimentary). I'm allowed to say "hella" on main now because Oakland's Princess Alysa Liu is now the leader of the free world. I am cringe but I am free.
• Ok. Where was I? Oh right.
• So Tennis Channel posted the above tweet celebrating Pegula's string of seven straight semifinals – which is a stat that completely flew under my radar. In a now deleted tweet, a little trolly troll who thought they were being cute, asked "How many converted to titles?" Jess, who spent the week doing some truly elite counter-punching on the court, acknowledged the body blow:

• Two days later, Pegula was holding her 10th career WTA title and 4th WTA 1000. These numbers are particularly remarkable because before October 2022, Pegula had won only one title. That means nine of her titles and all four of her WTA 1000s were won in the last three-and-a-half years. The whole run started with her 2022 Guadalajara title.

• I did a bit of spot-checking and here are a few notable players who do not have more career titles than Pegula, and their titles have all come over a longer span: Keys (10 titles: 1 GS; 1 1000), Bencic (10 titles: 2 1000s), Ostapenko (9 titles: 1GS; 0 1000s), Osaka (7 titles: 4 GS; 2 1000), Krejcikova (8 titles: 2 GS, 1 1000); Mertens (10 titles: 0 1000s). Among the active Americans on the ATP, Taylor Fritz has 10 and the next best is 4. By way of comparison, Coco Gauff also won her 1st WTA title in 2019. She has 11 overall, with two Slams, five 1000s, and a WTA Finals.

• How does she do it at the ripe old age of a few days from 32? By not getting too high, not getting too low, never wavering in her work ethic and professionalism, continually looking to improve, thinking tactically, and believing that regardless of what is swirling around her, so long as she keeps putting herself into positions to win, the wins will come. Easier typed than done. But Jess has mastered it. It may not be flashy, but it's a marvel to see her do it every frickin' day.

• While Pegula was holding it down in a field that required four Top 20 wins, including two Top 10 wins – an outstanding comeback win over Amanda Anisimova to move to 5-0 against AA and a straight-set clinic against a fatigued Elina Svitolina – Sebastian Korda had a (hopefully) resurgent week at Delray Beach to win his first title since 2024. It doesn't feel like that long ago that the now 25-year-old son of Petr Korda looked like the sure-bet heir apparent to American men's tennis, but injuries and form had knocked him down to No. 50. He knocked off three Top 5 seeds – Casper Ruud, Flavio Cobolli, and Tommy Paul – to secure the title. Here's hoping he finds a way back in the mix. (Palm Beach Post via Yahoo)
• Sebi had an answer for everything in Delray:

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A post shared by Tennis (@tennischannel)

• Of course, not everyone makes it look like a struggle. Carlos Alcaraz blitzed Arthur Fils in 50 minutes to win the ATP 500 in Doha, 6-2, 6-1. He said it was one of the Top 15 performances of his career. I don't know what to tell you! Dude is super good and getting better and still undefeated in 2026! But it was great to see Fils make the final in just his third tournament back since his back injury, which sidelined him since Cincinnati. (ATP)

• And it's far to early to even come close to being concerned, but Jannik Sinner bowed out of Doha in the quarterfinals to Jakub Mensik in three sets. So the World No. 2 will go into the Sunshine Double looking to snag a hard court title before we hit the dirt.
• And in Rio, a week after Francisco Cerundolo won Buenos Aires, Tomas Etcheverry kept the Golden Swing in Argentine hands. (ATP)

This week's draws: WTA 500 Merida | ATP 500 Dubai | WTA 250 Austin | ATP 250 Acapulco | ATP 250 Santiago

• A quick note on Merida and Acapulco: If you haven't followed the news, there has been a wave of retaliatory violence in a number of Mexican states after a Mexican cartel boss was killed in a military operation in Jalisco. Embassies have urged people in the affected states to either leave or shelter in place. Acapulco is in Guerrero, which is mentioned in the U.S. Embassy's advisory, while Merida is in Yucatan, which is not in the advisory. Here's hoping everyone is safe and remains safe. (CNN)

• One tournament to keep an eye on is Austin, where I hear Jess Pegula is on her way to play as the top seed – respect – and Bianca Andreescu and Venus Williams have taken wildcards. Jess and Bianca could face-off in the second round. Venus opens against Ajla. Over in Merida, Jasmine Paolini has taken a wildcard and will play as the top seed.
• Jack Draper is back. The World No. 12 is freshly shorn and in Dubai for his first official ATP tournament since the US Open. (The National)

“Truthfully, it's not easy mentally to go from being sort of 100 miles an hour and achieving and moving forwards and wins and losses and a lot of adrenaline the whole time to then go back to kind of, not normality, but almost normality, going at a much slower pace,” said the 24-year-old.

“And yeah, it's been way too long since I've been able to compete and able to be out here on the tour, so I used that time. I tried to be grateful to be with my family and to be at home, but at the same time, it was a process to get back on court and I'm happy to be back.”

• More on Jess Pegula's singularly unique late-blooming career and a roundup of all the nitty-gritty from Dubai here. (WTA Backspin)

13-2 on the year, Pegula is 28-7 in tour events since the start of last year's U.S. Open. Next up? Trying to break through in the Sunshine swing. At Indian Wells, her lone QF in seven MD appearances came in 2021; while she's come up *just* short of something great in Miami, with SF-SF-QF-RU results the last four years.

Pegula's wins over Anisimova and Svitolina give her four Top 10 victories on the season, a tour-best, and she's (so far) the only player to have two multi-Top 10 win events (she got two at AO26, as well) this year.

• Run, don't walk, to Instagram to watch The Players Box Snack Review video, which was crashed by none other than Zheng Qinwen. (Instagram)

• This wasn't meant to be a Jessica Pegula Newsletter but she was doing far too much this week: She's the new chair of the WTA's newly-formed Tour Architecture Council, which will look into calendar issues. Level headed, rational, smart, and the players trust her. Good appointment. But also...good luck. I'm confident in saying if no progress is made from the council, it won't be for a lack of her trying. (The National)

• I said this during a Twitch stream last week: a tournament director has every right to be frustrated by withdrawals and should absolutely address that with players and the tours privately, but tennis will come through. The Dubai semifinals were an incredible six hours of high-quality tennis and you got a more than worthy champion in the end. That's the proven beauty of the WTA's longstanding depth:

• On the WTA x Mercedes Benz deal and what makes it different from the tour's previous name sponsor, Hologic. (Arab News)

“Our last premier partner was Hologic, which is an extraordinary brand and allowed us to do so much in the women's health space that I think really was industry-leading,” said Swanson.

“But it’s not consumer-facing. The difference with a partner like Mercedes is they want to be out locally in their dealerships, in their regions, working across the globe.

“They want to use their content to talk about the partnership very publicly. And they have all the internal systems and operations to do that. That’s different than we’ve had before.

• Venus Williams has taken a wildcard into singles and doubles at Indian Wells. (AP via Yahoo)
• Sloane Stephens announced on Instagram that she and Jozy Altidore are ending their marriage. (AP via Yahoo)
• Tara Moore has filed a lawsuit against the WTA in the Southern District of New York and is seeking $20 million in damages in connection to her four-year doping ban. The procedural details are a bit murky – and if you know the law, you know the devil is in the procedural details – but from what I can tell without having read the actual pleading (shakes fist at PACER): Based on this August 2025 tweet, it seems she already brought an action against the WTA and ITIA alleging the WTA was negligent in failing to warn about the risk of contaminated meat in Bogota, and that went to confidential binding arbitration, which makes sense under the WTA Rulebook. Based on this, the arbitrator came back with a decision in November 2025, which would also make sense because if you want to contest an arbitration award you usually have to file something in court within 90 days of the decision and we're right around the end of that window, depending on the exact date. Asking the court to set an arbitration award aside can be pretty tough standard to prove up. You usually have to prove corruption or fraud by the arbitrator. But I'm just spitballing in generalities. Hopefully the British press can suss out the details. $20 million is a large number. (Ubitennis; Twitter; Law.com)

• Casper is just dropping vlog after vlog on his YouTube channel:

• Arthur Fils has added Goran Ivanisevic to his team. (Tennis.com)
• Steve Tignor takes a look at the growing stature of the ATP 500s, where the non-mandatory status gives tournament directors a good amount of freedom to put together a field that the local market will enjoy. (Tennis.com)

For the players, there’s one more advantage: Tournament owners at the 500s can offer appearance fees, which the Slams and 1000s can’t. Alcaraz and Sinner were each paid $1.2 to show up in Doha. Appearance money, of course, can be a double-edged sword. They guarantee that a player is in the field, but they can’t guarantee that, after already receiving a million bucks, he’ll be quite as desperate to win the title. Still, any tournament with Sinner and Alcaraz is good for the sport. Even without them, the points and money available at 500s will always draw a high-quality, highly-ranked crowd.

• Carlos, listen to Petko: Don't mess with the Cheech.

Lindsay Davenport, Mary Joe Fernandez watch sons win NCAA debut together 30 years after their Roland Garros triumph | Tennis.com

The ITA Men’s National Team Indoor Championship was a showcase for several family members of past and present tour-level competitors.

Tennis.comGreg Sharko

• The Athletic has an FAQ on Serena's potential comeback now that she's been officially reinstated by the ITIA. (The Athletic via Yahoo)

• The Olympics is like tennis: no matter what nonsense is swirling, the athletes always save it. (CBC)

• Not cool for NBC to completely ignore Nazgul in its final Olympics montage. (NPR)
• Replace Kipling with this:

• Sun's gettin' real low, Flavio:

• If you're familiar with Twitch streamers, this will make you smile:

• This is very, very good, even more so in light of whatever the hell was going on with the USA Men's Hockey Team after the gold medal game:

• Will there ever be same-sex pairs skating? Natalia Zabiiako did a vlog with Gabriela Pappadakis a couple of months ago exploring the topic:

• Points were made:

• Bop of the Day: If you discount Hans Zimmer's DUNE and GLADIATOR scores, Donna Summer was the Olympic skating MVP: