Desert Bagel: Hakuna Matata

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.

There are few things that make you feel more American than having to explain to a non-American why going to a police station in a large American city – to tell them that the Apple watch that was stolen from your car in a smash-and-grab is pinging a location – is a futile endeavor (ACAB) and why going to the location ourselves is a VERY BAD IDEA (people have guns here).

Yes, after doing the lovely nine-hour drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the scenic 101 – with a 2-hour detour to visit the La Purisma Mission near Lompoc, a.k.a. the home of The Sisters of the Brave Beaver – my rear passenger window was busted and a couple of backpacks full of tech equipment were stolen from the car, all while I was enjoying a delicious MVP hot dog at Pink's.

That sucked for all the obvious reasons, but L.A. remains awesome. Those three words would have never escaped my lips five years ago, but goddammit this city has really worn me down. As much as that incident sucked, Angelenos remain real ones. From Trayven, the best Best Buy guy I've ever met, who seamlessly helped us pull together replacement gear with his immense knowledge, to David the window repair guy who squeezed me into his Sunday schedule to do the replacement, to the valet guys at the hotel who cleared out space in front of the hotel for David to do the work. Absolute legends, all.

And hey, it gave me something to blog about! Turning Ls into Dubs. Story of my life.

And so, as a great Spanish philosopher once said, whatever happen-ed happen-ed and now we are in Rome. Well, the Rome of the California desert: Indian Wells. The sun is shining (gross), the air smells of honeysuckle (awesome), and I'm currently sitting in the press center watching Taylor Townsend try and fight off Joanna Garland in the first round of qualifying.

I got no complaints.

• Previously on The Bagel: Bublik asks an important question.
• Weekend champs: Flavio Cobolli bested Frances Tiafoe to win the ATP 500 in Acapulco; Daniil Medvedev won Dubai on a walkover, but we take what we can get; Spain's Cristina Bucsa won the WTA 500 in Merida; Peyton Stearns wins her collegetown tournament in Austin, beating Taylor Townsend, who was playing her first tour-level WTA final; and Luca Dardieri wins Santiago.
• This week: The first joint ATP Masters/WTA 1000 of the season kicks off at Indian Wells on Wednesday.
• In this house, we stan PDF draws:

• Quick thoughts on the women: Bottom Half is the Group of Death.... Top Half should be chill if you're Aryna Sabalenka playing her first tournament since the AO final.... Potential Gauff-Andreescu 2R AND a potential Gauff-Eala 3R.... Possible Madison-Venus (!!!) 2R.... Muchova-Qinwen 3R intriguing.... Swiatek-Sakkari 3R rematch of two IW finals and their most recent Doha clash, which Sakkari won.

• Quick thoughts on the dudes: Oh wow Novak actually came.... Possible De Minaur-Korda 2R.... The players who are stranded in Dubai are in the draw for now (though Rublev and Medvedev were replaced in Wednesday night's Tiebreak Tens exhibition).... Atmane-Dimitrov to play Alcaraz is fun if you like your heart to be broken.
• An update from the ATP on the situation in Dubai, where a group of players, staff, journalists, transcriptionists, and team members are awaiting the green light fly out.

• Marca's Joan Solsona is one of the reporters stuck in Dubai. Here's his account. (Marca)

Tennis stars in Dubai and Paralympians face travel issues as Middle East war continues

Former U.S. Open tennis champion Daniil Medvedev has indicated he’s one of what the ATP Tour calls “a small number of players and team members” it is trying to help leave Dubai as the war in the Middle East causes a widespread travel shutdown that has also caused issues for athletes heading to the Paralympics. Medvedev’s Instagram account reposted on Monday a report from a Russian-language tennis outlet, Bolshe, which said he was safe and staying at a friend’s apartment in Dubai, amid flight cancellations after winning the ATP event there last week.

Yahoo SportsJAMES ELLINGWORTH

• Memphis will take over the WTA 250 Cleveland sanction and will stage an outdoor hard court event the same weekend as Washington D.C.
• A great collection of stats from the Middle East swing from Alex Macpherson at the WTA. Of course, the most important stat of the swing is 1: WTA 1000s win by KAROLINA MUCHOVA. (WTA)

• Great stuff by Reem Abulleil on Jessica Pegula. She may not have the Cinderella story, but she may just be the influential figure that women's tennis needs. (The Second Serve)
• Owen Lewis says the quiet parts out loud in his take on Iga Swiatek: The Overthinker. (The Second Serve)

Swiatek’s plight is fascinating—she’s in search of a brand of tennis that once was natural but has been dormant for long enough to become inaccessible. It’s still in her somewhere. In the second set of her Roland-Garros semifinal with Sabalenka last year, Swiatek hit perfectly weighted drop shots on consecutive points, from compromised positions (and right after consistent Iga skeptic Chris Evert shaded her touch). Can we reunite with parts of ourselves that are lost to time if we work hard enough to dig them up? In the late years of his career, Andy Murray retained many of his scrambling abilities but could not, try as I’m sure he did, compensate for what he lost by just banging the damn ball. It’s hard, so hard, to grant yourself mental permission to deviate from the strategy that has served you well for years. Swiatek is at least trying to deviate back to a software she’s implemented before, but that doesn’t seem to be any easier. 

• Cute. (ATP)

Lindsay Davenport won the Indian Wells singles title in 1997 and 2000, well before her son, Jagger Leach, was born. Now it is Leach who has a chance to shine at the BNP Paribas Open.

The 18-year-old, a freshman at Stanford University, is competing in an ATP Tour qualifying event for the first time at the season’s first ATP Masters 1000 event. It is a fitting venue considering the Californian has spent nearly every March of his life at Indian Wells, from the days following around his mother, who coached Madison Keys, to competing in a junior tournament at the same location.

“Some of my best memories are from when I was seven years old and I was running around and I was trying to find open practice courts with my dad,” Leach said of his father, former pro Jonathan Leach. “When my mom was coaching Madison, we could go over to the practice courts, and if she finished her practice seven minutes early, then my dad and I would jump on and hit for those seven minutes, and then we would walk around.

“If we saw another pro finish 10 minutes before their practice time was up, then we would try and go hit for those 10 minutes and we were just scavenging around. And that was a lot of fun. I have great memories from that.”

‘Resilience is the biggest lesson’: Emma Raducanu is ready for revival after setbacks

In Japan to announce her switch to Uniqlo, the British No 1 says frustrations only fuel the fire as she looks to Indian Wells and beyond

The GuardianJustin McCurry

• Emma Raducanu still does not have a full-time coach, but she's re-linked with Mark Petchey for Indian Wells. The Telegraph reports Petchey won't be as available as he was last year.
• Cool to see Roger and Stan chum it up at Dubai last week:

• It may not be sexy, but data is a huuuuuuuge money driver in tennis. If you understand that, you'll understand the underlying reason for A LOT of the business and marketing decisions you see in the sport. For better and for worse. (The Athletic via Yahoo).
• The WTA says a technical error is to blame for a Russian flag appearing in a broadcast last week. (The Telegraph via Yahoo)
• Will Craig Tiley's move to the USTA impact the ongoing PTPA lawsuit? (Sportico via Yahoo)

• I am so happy to see Ava Wallace get picked up and props to The Athletic for hiring not just one, not just two, but three people to offer tennis coverage. No other English-speaking news outlet is doing anything even close.

Professional tennis is (still) broken. Here’s how to fix it (again)

Each year, the vise squeezing tennis toward some level of fundamental change grows a little tighter. Since 2023, the sport has been doing what it does every decade or so: having a fundamental reckoning with its format, calendar and tournament structure, which fatigues some players and fans alike. No other major sport has been as successful in delivering equality between men and women, though work remains to be done. Few major sports benefit so greatly from global spread and near-24/7/365 matches

Yahoo SportsMatthew Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare

• Carole Bouchard caught up with a healed – hopefully! – Arthur Fils in Doha. (The Second Serve)
• And more fun nuggets in Carole's newsletter, including a very fair rumination on the SinCaraz machine. (The Tennis Sweet Spot)

But my point remains that it cannot be good for their own longevity and so business to turn into a “death, taxes, and SinCaraz”. I mean, surely also it’s going to get their value down too because, sorry, at some point, if you get caviar every weekend, it doesn’t feel like it deserves to jump up and down about it and be ready to fork a lot of money or a lot of personal time to keep having a chance at having it. You know what? I’ll catch them next week!

Also, side note: I had to laugh at the faux outrage about the money Alcaraz and Sinner reportedly got to play in Doha because, babes (BABES!), it’s still miles and miles away from what Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic would get from tournaments and exhibitions back in the day. And there was nobody to be shocked at it then, so please.

Tennis actually would need it even more. Maybe also a fourth or a fifth volunteer. Why? Because you cannot keep selling an entire sport by putting forward just two names and then praying they reach the finals. It is not sustainable. It shouldn’t even have started to be this way. If the message you send out is that men’s tennis right now is only about Sinner and Alcaraz, you’re putting yourself with a foot off the ledge. And so each time they lose or each time they lose before meeting each other, people start to feel that the tournament is a failure or that it’s already over. I don’t think that’s good business

• I can't wait to see how Andy Roddick changes the tenor of ESPN's coverage at the Slams. It's been a no-brainer to get Roddick into the booth ever since he hung up his Babolat. Regardless, it's clear that the sports leader is hellbent on livening up its coverage. (The Athletic)
• Speaking of which, it's great to see Chris Eubanks get what he deserves. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Steve Tignor takes a look at Iva Jovic and Learner Tien, two Californian kids of immigrants, ready to make waves at their home tournament. (Tennis.com)
• Annual reminder: For pure joy during Indian Wells, follow Lawanda. She is the sweetest, most generous, and most beloved superfan. (Twitter)
• Bop of the Day: I listen to this song a lot, not because of the tune itself, but because it makes me think of Emma Stone in BUGONIA and I always laugh uncontrollably, and that feeling is pure dopamine: