Daily Bagel: WTA veteran plays with a heavy heart
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Kimiko Date-Krumm, still rocking the Hot Shots at age 41 (she turns 42 this week). Unfortunately, she lost to Marion Bartoli in the first round of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
• Jarmila Gajdosova found out the Friday before the start of the tournament in Guangzhou, China, that her mother had died. She wrote on the WTA's Web site:
I spoke to my dad and my brother as I heard the news and they told me to keep playing, that my mum will always be home when I finish, that I can visit her when I come home, and that I still have my life and my tennis to take care of. So I was trying to win this week for my mum, but as you can imagine it was hard to concentrate, and the more I tried, the worse it got. I was very sad when I lost. It broke my heart - I really wanted to win for my mum to be proud, but I couldn't.
• Amid deteriorating relations between China and Japan, Li Na and Kei Nishikori keep it about the tennis.
• CNN profiles the resurgence of German tennis, looking at Angelique Kerber, Andrea Petkovic, Julia Goerges and Sabine Lisicki. Incidentally, Lisicki's losing streak hit four with Monday's loss to Heather Watson in the first round of Tokyo, while Petkovic lost to Petra Martic.
• Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, Richard Hinds says he's not willing to cut Bernard Tomic any more slack:
Once, we might have suggested Tomic at least won a singles rubber in Germany, while [Lleyton] Hewitt lost both of his. Now, we will remember Hewitt's defeats are fully justifiable for a veteran who has extracted everything from an aching body. When Tomic loses, he must convince us he has not raised the white flag again.
• Happy 20th birthday to Jack Sock.
• Non-tennis: The evolution of cheating in chess. Fun read.
See or read something that you enjoyed and want to share? Feel free to email or tweet us links to pieces from around the Internet that may have slipped past our radar.
