Daily Bagel: Andy Murray denies camp complaints of Roger Federer favoritism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go6yGgW4QJU
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Five-set matches at a Grand Slam tournament can be tense, but Jo-Wilfried Tsonga showed you can still have fun. During the fifth set of their quarterfinal match Wednesday night, Roger Federer hit a drop shot that landed on the net cord and trickled over. Tsonga's reaction is just so ... Tsonga. He jokingly threatens Federer with a beatdown.
• British papers reported that members of Andy Murray's camp were complaining that it was unfair for Murray to play all day-session matches while Federer has now played four straight night matches, given the fact the two will play under the lights in their semifinal Friday night. Not true, Murray said.
"If I was the tournament director or the referee or whoever decides the schedule, I also would have put Federer against Tsonga on as the night match tonight because it's the best match of the day. So I have no complaints about the schedule at all, and I didn't complain about it the other day."
• With all the focus on Sloane Stephens' breakthrough victory, where does this leave Serena Williams? Doug Robson of USA Today reports on Serena's battle with nerves.
• Deadspin debunks the whole mentor-protégé narrative between Williams and Stephens.
• What do Stephens and Maria Sharapova have in common? Big phone bills.
• This is the post-Armstrong era: After Novak Djokovic rebounded from his five-set marathon with Stanislas Wawrinka to beat Tomas Berdych in four sets, the two-time defending champion was grilled about his recovery regimen.
• Rafael Nadal's crazy expensive Richard Mille watch gets an upgrade this year.
• Paul McNamee, the man who made Hopman Cup what it is today, was one of the most influential voices in Australian tennis. Now he's sweating under the sun coaching Hsieh Su-Wei. Richard Hinds of The Sydney Morning Herald writes about the reversal of fortune.
After leaving the Australian Open in 2006, McNamee attempted to tackle two of Australian sport's problem children - the local golf tour and the Melbourne Football Club. He was then beaten in an election for the presidency of Tennis Australia by one vote. More painfully, last year, he lost control of the Hopman Cup, a tournament he had co-founded and built from a humble exhibition into a significant local event.
''That one hurt a lot,'' says McNamee, who spent Christmas in New York rather than watch the Hopman Cup played in its new government-funded arena. ''Me and my wife had given everything to that event. To have it taken away, yeah, that was tough.''
• Fun read here: Empathy for Manti Te'o: Or My Fantasy Relationship With Evonne Goolagong.
• Djokovic bids you good night as only Djokovic can: with a penguin.
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