Daily Bagel: Roger Rasheed is just what Grigor Dimitrov needs right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf3wGSZcMyQ&feature=player_embedded#at=88
The Daily Bagel is your dose of the interesting reporting, writing and quipping from around the Internet.
• Video: Here's a classic Maria Sharapova moment. During a French photoshoot, she's asked about Gilles Simon (around the 0:58 mark), the ardent advocate for the men being paid more than the women.
"Has he ever made it into your magazine," she asks. When an editor says no, the eyeroll speaks volumes. "That's just sad."
• Simon Cambers for The Tennis Space looks at the new partnership between Grigor Dimitrov and Roger Rasheed.
Peter Lundgren described him as being “better than (his former pupil) Roger Federer at the same age (18); Peter McNamara said he had 10 shots to choose from on every ball he hit; Patrick Mouratoglou said he would be a top, top player and his most recent coaches, at the Good to Great Tennis Academy run by Magnus Norman, were credited with their work ethic.
Dimitrov has all the shots but his fitness has always been a question mark. In May this year, he told me he had been having a number of tests to get to the bottom of why he has had so many cramping issues. His legs, he admits, are skinny but not through the want of trying (or weight training).
• Forbes takes a look at Petra Kvitova's marketing power (or lack thereof).
But Kvitova’s style of play is inherently high-risk, high-reward. The P3tra era may be a long-lasting one, if for no other reason than she hits the ball with so little margin so often. Navratilova also mentioned another factor that may explain Kvitova’s unpredictability, her asthma. Kvitova “doesn’t make excuses. I’m sure she doesn’t talk about [how the asthma affects her]. We don’t know how much of her inconsistency is her breathing [issues]."
Tennis is a cruel sport, one that rewards merciless perfection and punishes human frailty. It’s hardly surprising then that tennis advertisers reward perfection in kind. “If you’re a brand that projects perfection, if you associate with someone with asthma, that message is disjointed. This sounds incredibly harsh, and it teeters on immorality, but that’s the way things are, but if you’re a brand, you may not want to be associated with someone with asthma,” Chadwick said.
• Janko Tipsarevic retired just a few games into his first round match at the Valencia Open due to a lingering foot injury and says his only goal this season is to be fit for the Davis Cup final.
• Eugenie Bouchard played weathergirl on Canadian TV.
• If you're tracking Novak Djokovic's nuptual plans, it looks like a few options are in the works.
• Highlights from this year's Andy Roddick Foundation Gala.
