Skip to main content

Daily Bagel: A WTA giant-killer retires

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

• Video: Welcome back to the tennis court, Rafael Nadal. He posted videos of his first training session since Wimbledon last week.

A nice tribute to Gisela Dulko, who announced her retirement last week. Over the years she developed quite the reputation for being a giant-killer at the Slams. The affable 27-year-old Argentine will be missed.

Underrated as a singles player, Dulko was well-known for these early upset wins over star players in slams; in fact, they became her specialty. In addition to the wins against [Martina] Navratilova and [Maria] Sharapova, Dulko recorded wins over Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, Svetlana Kuznetsova,Victoria Azarenka, Samantha Stosur and Ana Ivanovic. She reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam three times (2006 French Open, 2009 US Open, 2011 French Open) and reached the third round seven times. For a player whose career high ranking in singles was #26 back in 2005, she tended to outperform her singles ranking in big events.

• Here's your McWozillroy update: Caroline Wozniacki says boyfriend Rory McIllroy is an inspiration. And McIlroy was happy to have her in Dubai for his year-ending victory.

She had to be cajoled into joining McIlroy on the 18th green for pictures with the two giant trophies he collected yesterday, saying modestly: "I have not won anything today." After his final round of 66, McIlroy publicly thanked Wozniacki for her support, suggesting: "I seem to win or do very well in any tournaments Caroline attends, so maybe I can persuade her to come to a few more."

Grigor Dimitrov has split with Patrick Mouratoglou and will be working with Magnus Norman at the Good to Great Tennis Academy in Sweden.

• French tennis coach Regis de Camaret has been sentenced to eight years in prison for raping two young female players. One of his former charges, Nathalie Tauziat, testified for him as a character witness and the FFT is now calling for her resignation.

Prince William will present Novak Djokovic a Centrepoint award for his charity work.

• The Battle of the Martinas: Navratilova and Hingis will face off in January at the World Tennis Challenge in Adelaide, Australia.

Cute pictures of Marcos Baghdatis, Karolina Sprem and baby Zahara. She's got her papa's hair, all right.

• This is hilarious: Everyone says Serena Williams is the toughest player to compete against. Except Maria Sharapova.

• Congrats to Mike Bryan, who got hitched this weekend.

• Non-tennis: Always helpful during the holidays: Largehearted Boy's aggregation of the "Best of 2012" book lists.

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.