Daily Bagel: ATPers put on the charm

• Ladies Love Cool Jocks. That's what LL Cool J meant, right? Watch Gael Monfils, Grigor Dimitrov and Ryan Harrison entertain some female fans at a luncheon sponsored by the SAP Open.

• Say it with me: The Emirates U.S. Open Series. Emirates Airlines has entered into a seven-year, $90 million deal for naming rights of the summer U.S. Open Series. It'll replace Olympus Corp. as the main title sponsor.

• Chris Evert says it's up to the players to stop grunters by notifying the umpire that the noise is a hindrance. "I had a habit where, if my first serve went in, I would drop the second ball back along the ground and Billie Jean King said if I did it again, she’d stop play because it was rolling in her line of sight," Evert said. "I did it, she stopped play and complained and that started the ball tucked in the pants. Someone’s got to put the heat on.”

• The tennis world, at least the American tennis world, is still buzzing over the events of last weekend. Here are Peter Bodo's thoughts on why Davis Cup matters: "In Davis Cup, the journeyman gets a rare opportunity to be someone other than his usual self, the guy who loses in the second or third round at a tournament to a high seed -- or some guy ranked No. 56 in the world. He gets the chance to step into the spotlight and he's given three or four hours to show his stuff, all that stuff that can be so maddeningly difficult to pull up week-after-week, round-by-round in tournament play. Do it twice, and you're a national hero. Do it twice at a tournament and then lose to Benjamin Becker and who cares?"

• Novak Djokovic's image was used as propaganda in a referendum vote in northern Kosovo.

• A fond farewell to the two-man team behind Tennis Served Fresh, an influential blog that kept the sport light and fun. Best of luck to Nicholas McCarvel and Erwin C. Ong.

This New Yorker piece

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