Daily Bagel: WTA Player of the Year?

The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.

• Video: Nice behind the scenes video of the WTA draw ceremony. My favorite part is the girls cackling as WTA CEO Stacey Allaster gets her makeup done.

• Matt Cronin takes stock of the 2012 WTA Player of the Year race. Serena is the consensus pick, but Azarenka has a chance in Istanbul to even it up.

If “Vika’ is going to get serious consideration as the POY, she is going to have to beat Serena here at least once, if not twice. If she manages to do so, she’ll go into 2013 as a very threatening No. 1, but if she loses to Williams again, she just won’t have the respect that at least before the last decade, went along with being the the world No. 1.

• Roger Federer began his quest to defend Basel, Paris, and the World Tour Finals with a straight-set win over Benjamin Becker in Basel. Here's what he said about trying to complete the three-peat.

“I think it’s possible, but look, it’s tough,” Federer said. “It all depends on what the scheduling is, who your opponents are and if you get a chance to get on a run... But that shouldn’t be my goal right now to win all three again. The goal is to first play here and see how I go.”

• As Bernard Tomic sputters to end the season, Lleyton Hewitt is grinding out wins, including a straight set win over Juan Monaco on Monday in Valencia. Let the negative comparisons commence!

As a teenager, Hewitt won seven ATP titles - including his first at 17 after defeating Andre Agassi in Adelaide - and also helped Australia to Davis Cup glory. Tomic, still chasing his maiden tour title, was ranked 48th and on the slide on his 20th birthday, while Hewitt was ranked seventh with a bullet. In his fledgling career, Tomic has played 97 matches - one less than Hewitt completed during his exhausting and triumphant 2001 season alone.

• Non-tennis: Fairytales for Twenty-Somethings.

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