Daily Bagel: Serena Williams goes on 'Letterman'
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Serena Williams pops onto Late Night with David Letterman looking "Ka-POW". Yes, that's a technical term.
• Sergiy Stakhovsky, who was elected to the ATP Player's Council, has never been shy about his opinion that men should be paid more than the women. Speaking with Lindsay Gibbs for 10sWorld, he dropped on particular bomb: He doesn't think joint events will exist for much longer.
Besides the issues with prize money equality at Grand Slams and the lack of WTA player leadership, Stakhovsky also expressed frustration with joint events. "When there's a combined event it's really hard to get a practice court. You have to get up at like 7AM…. I mean, joint events are in the past. We will split all the events we can. The ATP is done with (joint) events on the tour with the WTA, so it will be only Grand Slams and that's it.”
• The NCAA has seen the error of its ways and backs off the proposal to replace the third set in singles with a match tie-break. Wise.
• Jon Wertheim highlights his stories to watch for the U.S. Open.
• Writing for espnW, Kamakshi Tandon wonders if the No. 1 ranking has been devalued on the women's tour.
But the top names tended to play less as time went on, not more, skewing the rankings in favor of the more consistent workhorses. To cap it all, Henin retired at No. 1 in 2008, creating a rankings havoc that saw five different players reach No. 1 in the next five months. Another factor is the increased depth of the women's field, making it harder for any No. 1 to dominate. Six different players have won the past six Grand Slam tournaments.
• Steve Tignor writes about the ever-present "Fedipal Complex" that exists among everyone on the ATP Tour.
[E]ach player has his own issues with playing Federer. Nadal was told very early by his uncle Toni that he would never be the shot-maker that Federer is, so he would have to wear him down, get every ball back, and do whatever he could to put doubt into his head. Rafa’s Fedipal complex actually ended up working in his favor. By believing that he wasn’t as talented, that he would never measure up to the father, Nadal took pressure off of himself and his ego out of the equation against Federer.
• Non-tennis: I'm a Oakland A's fan so I can say this with equal parts love and hate: Bless you, Barry Zito.
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