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Saturday, June 8, 2019

What is a Bagel ? ~ Anna Tatishvili fined $74,000 !!


What you see here is sure an edible item ~ some like it so much – it is known as ‘Bagel’ 

Q :  Bagel, shaped like ring doughnut is made of bread – do you know what Golden Bagel Award and with which game is it associated with ?  .. and would you imagine a fine of  $74,000 [51.32 lakhs Indian rupees]  in a sport !!!

At Roland Garros  Ashleigh Barty’s gritty survival against the American 17-year-old Amanda Anisimova in the semifinals is being talked about. In a match of extraordinarily unpredictable ebb-and-flow, Barty converted a disastrous first set collapse and a grim second set deficit into tenacious victory on her sixth match point to triumph 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3. In Men’s - Roger Federer lost to rival Rafael Nadal, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, in the French Open semifinals.  In the third set, Federer showed a bit of frustration and  shot a ball into the stands after dropping a break. It’s all happening at French Open.

French open is held in Roland-Garros stadium which was built in 1928.  Its history has it that during those times,  the team of Jacques "Toto" Brugnon, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste pulled off one of the biggest shocks in 20th century sport. The famous foursome upset all the odds by winning the Davis Cup on American soil, and in doing so set up a rematch in 1928, in Paris.  Meriting the victory, 3 hectares of land was given to French Tennis Federation and the new stadium was sought to be named after Roland-Garros,  an aviation pioneer.  In the late 1970s & 1980s, the matches of Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert Lloyd were charming everyone.  Björn Borg won the French open a record six times.  In the Women’s Chris Evert was prevailing over Martina Navratilova and then came Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.  The French were delighted when Yannick Noah won the title in 1983.  Most of the current clay court specialists are Spanish, including of course the current holder, Majorcan left-hander Rafael Nadal, who has won five times in six appereances.

World No.1 Novak Djokovic and last year’s runner-up Dominic Thiem will resume their fascinating arm-wrestle to reach another Roland-Garros singles final on Saturday after their semi-final was suspended in the third set because of rainy, windy conditions. Austria's Thiem was leading 3-1 after the first two sets had been split.  Djokovic, the US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon champion, is scrapping to keep his ‘Novak Slam’ hopes alive after having his serve broken to fall behind in what had been a keenly-contested third set, with the pair still both looking towards the prospect of a final rematch with Roger Federer’s conqueror, Rafael Nadal.

American tennis player Anna Tatishvili has been fined $74,000 for performing “below professional standards” during a first round loss at the French Open. The Georgian-born American was playing her first match on the WTA tour since October 2017, thrashed 6-1, 6-0 by Maria Sakkari in just 55 minutes. The 29-year-old is on the comeback trail after a third ankle surgery in late 2018.  In her career, Tatishvili has  won eleven singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. Her highest ranking is 50 and No. 59 in the doubles rankings. Her biggest achievement was a fourth-round appearance at the 2012 US Open, in which she was defeated by then-world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in straight sets.

At the 2015 US Open, Tatishvili soared through the qualifiers to face the world No. 8, Karolína Plíšková, in the first round of the main draw. Using her aggressive returns and dominant ground strokes, Tatishvili defeated the eighth seed in just 51 minutes. The former world No 50 Anna Tatishvili has been fined $51,250 (£41,000) for performing “below professional standards” in her first-round match at the French Open. The fine equates to the her entire first-round earnings. She used her protected ranking, which expires on 24 June, to enter the French Open but under grand slam rules the match referee has the right to fine a player entering under such a ranking who is not deemed fit enough to play.  Officials deemed that Tatishvili had contravened new rules aimed to discourage injured or ill players entering grand slams to collect the prize money.

New rules were introduced at grand slams last year to prevent players taking to the court with no realistic chance of finishing a first-round match. The new regulations state that players can receive half the prize money if they travel to the event and pull out before the match. The decision to strip her prize money has caused some controversy, with many pointing out that some matches have lasted less time than Tatishvili’s, as well as the fact that Sakkari is World No.30. Tatishvili lasted 55 minutes v Sakkari.  

British player Katie Boulter reportedly angered her rivals after belatedly showing up at the French Open just to pocket $37,000. The 22-year-old has not played since Britain’s Fed Cup victory over Kazakhstan last month, where she aggravated a back problem, and had been ruled out of the whole clay season. But her name surprisingly appeared in the Roland Garros draw before the tournament. One day before it started, Boulter rushed from London to Paris in order to withdraw and claim half the first-round prize money. Boulter could have avoided the hubbub by withdrawing before the draw, but she was instead pictured attending the Chelsea Flower Show later on.

Bagel is of course an edible item made of bread, shaped like a ring doughnut with a whole in the middle.  The term is associated with Tennis.  When a player wins 6-0 i.e., wins a set without losing a game in that set, he/she  hands out a bagel. The Golden Bagel Award was an award established in 2004 and awarded until 2013 that honored the professional male tennis player who has handed out more bagels, than any other player on the circuit. Roger Federer holds the all-time record for most bagels in a single season with 18 going into the Tennis Masters Cup, and a total of 19 in 2006.  Should Tatishvili want to appeal, she would need to first pay the fine in full. She is yet to make any comment on the fine.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
8th June 2019.

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