Desert Bagel: Rumors and reality

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: I was robbed.
• The BNP Paribas Open is underway. Here are the all the links you need: Men's Draw | Women's Draw | Order of Play | Scores
• Rumor Quashing: Zheng Qinwen was spotted on the practice courts with Marcos Baghdatis. Her agent confirmed that Marcos has been added to the team as an additional voice, and that Pere Riba, who is back in Barcelona, is still the head coach. More in this exclusive interview for Ten Cent:

• This is frightening: Lucrezia Stefanini says she was sent a picture of a gun before Indian Wells qualifying. (AP via Yahoo)
• An good update from Dubai:

Medvedev, others stuck in Dubai get out, plan to play Indian Wells

According to accounts, the group drove to Oman, took a flight to Istanbul and then flew to L.A. before heading to Indian Wells

The Desert Sun, The Desert Sun

• A bad update from Dubai: Please get our girl home, Emirates.

• And here's an update from The Athletic on the situation in Fujairah, UAE. And while we're here, can I just say: PLEASE if you're going to rely on reporting right now, rely on reporting from REPORTERS who REPORT. Screengrabs of Instagram stories IS NOT REPORTING. No one needs to contribute to misinformation and in times of war and conflict things move faster than the truth gets out. Be vigilant.
• Coco Gauff's coach Gavin MacMillan was also impacted. (Palm Beach Post)

• Nice piece on Merida's unassuming champion Cristina Bucsa. (CLAY)

Until just a few months ago, Bucsa was the only player in the world’s Top 100 without a clothing or racquet sponsor. She bought her own outfits and chose her racquets based on feel, not on contract. In 2025 she reached an agreement with the clothing brand Country Club by Dasha, a company founded by former player Dasha Berezhnaya and based in Singapore.

A psychology student and a fan of philosophy books, Bucsa has “given in” when it comes to sponsorship. But she remains absent from social media. She has no Instagram. No TikTok or X either. Only Facebook, which she barely uses — mainly to arrange practice sessions and doubles matches with other players.

Cristina Bucsa does not want you to find her. And she says so herself: “I like to be free; freedom is the best thing.” Now, with her first title and as Spain’s No. 1, it will be harder for her to hide.

• 5 Wacky Indian Wells Stats That Made Me Drop My Jaw:
  • The last 7 champions at Indian Wells have been 23 years old or younger: Osaka (2018), Andreescu (2019), Badosa (2021), Swiatek (2022, 2024), Rybakina (2023) and Andreeva (2025). Prior to this current stretch, the previous 5 champions average ages was 27.5 years old
  • It has been 25 years since an American woman won the title at Indian Wells (2001, Serena Williams at 19 years old).
  • The World No.1 or No.2 has won the title ONCE in the last 12 editions of the tournament (No.1 Swiatek won in 2024).
  • Venus Williams is the player with the biggest gap – 30YEARS – between her first (1996) and last appearance (2026) in Indian Wells.
  • Iga Swiatek is two WTA 1000s behind Serena Williams (13) for the most WTA 1000 titles. Obviously, 1000s only became a thing in 2009, but it's still wild given the players who've come through the last 15 years.

• Taylor Fritz is going viral for his long discussion of different tennis ball brands during one of his League of Legends streams. It shouldn't be a secret anymore that Fritz is a Top 3 tennis brain, someone who can't help but noodle on the minutiae of every aspect of the game. I enjoy Taylor's streams, and it's great that he donates all the money to charity.
• As a fellow streamer – shout out my dedicated six-person audience! – I know how complicated it can be to, in real time, try to field questions while also being wary of getting clipped. Streams are supposed to be casual safe-spaces, and if they're not, well, we're just not going to say anything interesting. I asked Fritz what it was like to see his clip spread on social media:

"I normally just delete the VODs of the stuff as soon as the stream is over, because I kind of want it to just be more exclusive to the people that come by and watch, and I don't really want all of the clips just circulating online.

"But yeah, it's interesting to see how many people take interest in what I'm saying about that. And I was definitely just kind of yapping and definitely took way longer to get my point across, because I was also playing a game at the same time and not really playing attention."

• Two truths, one lie: Aryna Sabalenka got engaged, got a dog, and named the dog after Ashleigh Barty. (Twitter)
• A number of women were asked about Craig Tiley's suggestion that Slams move to Best of 5 and I couldn't help but laugh because while Jess, Iga, and Coco took the question on from a rational and logical perspective – the trend in sports is to make things shorter, how would you even get through an order of play, the guys wouldn't want to wait for a women's Best of 5 – Aryna just blurted out straightaway that she was 100% on board because she would win more. Which would seem to underline her unwavering belief that "luck" played into those losses. I don't want to nip the quotes from the reporter who asked the questions, but they'll come out soon I'm sure. Nothing controversial. Just...funny.

Daniil Medvedev’s Tennis Plans Interrupted By Unrelated Global Crisis | Defector

Daniil Medvedev experienced a series of unusual events this weekend. He had never won the same title twice, a distinguishing oddity of his career, but he finally did so Saturday when he recaptured the ATP 500 title in Dubai, which he last won in 2023, for his 23rd title overall. However, he won the final…

DefectorGiri Nathan

• Carlos Alcaraz cursing is always funny to me. From his Media Day:

"Obviously I know that 41 (consecutive wins), Novak holds the record. I'm gonna say you don't realize how difficult it is until you're chasing that, because, you know, all right, 41, it's not that much, but then you're like on 12. It's like, shit, it's like four or five more tournaments, the biggest tournaments in the world (smiling). You realize and you feel like how impressive it is."

• Hey you know what's funny? There are only three NHL hockey players with over 1M followers on Instagram. The WTA has at least nine. According to Forbes, the highest-paid NHL player last year was Team USA Captain Auston Matthews at $20.2M. Five women made more than that last year: Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Eileen Gu, and Zheng Qinwen. Don't mind me. I'm just noticing.

• Alysa Liu's brain remains fascinating. (Teen Vogue)

Perhaps that apparent ease is because working hard is actually Liu’s baseline. “I love pushing myself,” she says. “There's this thing called the aMCC in your brain, and it's where you say willpower resides. I love doing stuff that I really don't want to do, really hard things. I get a kick out of it, and that's where I'm happy.”

She doesn’t see the obligations or attention as pressure; she sees it as another opportunity to be herself. Like many other athletes in 2026, especially those representing the United States on the world stage, Liu has been asked to address the country's political climate. For her, a second-generation daughter of a Chinese immigrant, sharing her story is her most powerful response. “I think storytelling promotes and spreads empathy,” she says. “Some people picked up on it.”

Iga and Coco give Alysa Liu her flowers

Leaving a mark.

Forty DeuceCourtney Nguyen

• This was a really moving Players Tribune essay by Naomi Girma about Katie Meyer.
• I finally sucked it up and watched HAMNET. Beautifully shot, Jessie Buckley is truly Power Rankings No.1 of current actresses, and the long one-take scenes were phenomenal. Very good pic! Probably my No.4 favorite movie of the year behind OBAA, BUGONIA, and WEAPONS.
• Bop of the Day: Broken Social Scene, Metric, and Stars are going on tour together and my best friend and I got tickets and I'm just super duper excited for it: