Daily Bagel: When Madison Keys, at age 14, beat Serena Williams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dzjlkXuKGUk
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Laura Robson grew up in Wimbledon, won the junior title in 2008 and is a member of the All England Club. So she's probably a good person to field some Wimby questions.
• Madison Keys recalls the time she beat Serena Williams at a World Team Tennis match when she was 14.
“She obviously wasn’t going full out, it was first to five, no advantages, people cheering, your bench is on the side of the court, it was definitely not a competitive match.
“But I think that was probably one of the best five or six games I have ever put together. I think I hit ten aces or something, I was serving really well. I think I was just so excited I was not even focusing and I was just going for everything.
“When it finished I was like ‘Woah, I just beat Serena Williams’.
“Afterwards she was cool with me, I met her over the last couple of years on the tour and I went to the Fed Cup when it was close to home in Florida. I was able to sit on the bench, we sat next to each other and she was talking to me. But I didn’t bring it up.”
• Roger Federer got his second career double-bagel win Friday, defeating Mischa Zverev 6-0, 6-0 in 40 minutes to make the semifinals of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany.
• Steve Tignor has a great write-up of his first day at the Aegon Championships at Queen's Club in London. It's a different world.
Inside the dark brick clubhouse at Queen's, tradition still rules. Its labyrinthine hallways and staircases have something of a Downton Abbey feel. The club’s blazer-wearing members play the role of the Crawley family, while the rest of us jeans-wearers spend the week slaving away in the servant’s quarters that surround them. Member and worker: Never, hopefully, the twain shall meet. Each walks his own hallways, drinks at his own bars, enters and exits his own bathrooms, and grazes at his own tables. Members dine at the club’s elegant central restaurant, just above the stadium court. The press stuffs its collective face in the loud and crowded Buttery in the back while sitting five to a table. I half expect a black-suited Carson to stride in with a huff of disgust and call everyone to order.
• After finally winning his first Grand Slam tournament, Andy Murray considers this the second part of his career.
“I was trying my hardest [to win a Slam], but I just had to keep saying: ‘If I’m not good enough, then I’m sorry but it’s not because I’m not trying my best.’ Just because we’re from the UK, it doesn’t mean we have a right to be better than anybody else at sport.
“Now I’ve done it and put my name among them, I can move on. I feel like it’s the second part of my career now. I’ve probably only got another five or six years left of playing at the highest level, so I want to try and give myself the best chance at all the Grand Slams I play. Ivan [Lendl, Murray’s coach] has helped a lot with keeping me focused and not letting my mind drift and just think that [winning the US Open] is what I was here to do. It’s important to reset your goals. Before, I just wanted to win a Grand Slam. I didn’t care which one it was, I just wanted to win one. Now it’s a bit easier to start prioritising individual tournaments, and I think that will help.”
