Daily Bagel: Rafael Nadal wins poker tournament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrLDKAfMEE
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Champagne, Redfoo and dancing. That's how Victoria Azarenka celebrated her second Australian Open title.
• Rafael Nadal won a tournament! OK, it was a poker tournament, but hey, that's still something.
• The New York Times has a Q&A with WTA president Stacey Allaster. Here's her take on Azarenka's controversial medical timeout:
I know Vika pretty well, and she’s a good girl. And I think she probably just thought I’m going to play through this and get through it and that game was just too much and she had to call it. Probably in hindsight she would have done it differently and then after that, I think it’s the judgment of the medical experts. It’s their responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of the athlete. They made a determination that she needed a medical treatment and followed it and according to the rules. It’s not Vika’s fault it took 10 minutes.
• From The Wall Street Journal, does tennis have an "awesome" problem? Definitely.
There is such exuberance among modern tennis fans about the routinely great tennis they witness that, after a while, a conversation about the state of the men's game becomes a giddy effort to parse greatness—i.e., distinguishing the plain great from the super-great and the profoundly great. It winds up sounding like Radiohead fans arguing about their favorite Radiohead songs.
• Another great dispatch from Steve Tignor's Keeping Tabs series from Melbourne. Interesting tidbit in there about Novak Djokovic citing his loss to Jurgen Melzer at the 2010 French Open as the turning point of his career.
• It's no surprise that tennis' anti-doping efforts were a major topic of conversation in Melbourne. From Reuters, a good read on the call more more stringent blood testing.
• The Duchess of Cambridge gets honorary membership at the All England Club. Phew! No more standing in the queue for tickets, huh, Kate?
• From The Slice, Kevin Spacey got the VIP treatment in Melbourne, where he flew down to root for Andy Murray.
• From Tennis Grandstand, pictures of Azarenka partying with Redfoo.
• From Tennis Grandstand, a must-read on Ana Konjuh, the 15-year-old Croatian phenom whose sister was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease last fall that left her in a coma. Thanks to the help of some specialists, her sister emerged from the coma. Konjuh went on to win the Orange Bowl and the Australian Open junior title in singles and doubles. Quite a story.
