Daily Bagel: NHL star Henrik Lundqvist honors Bjorn Borg

(Henrik Lundqvist's Twitter account) • New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is wearing a new helmet for the NHL playoffs and he decided to salute the
Daily Bagel: NHL star Henrik Lundqvist honors Bjorn Borg
Daily Bagel: NHL star Henrik Lundqvist honors Bjorn Borg /

(Henrik Lundqvist's Twitter account)

Twitter

• New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is wearing a new helmet for the NHL playoffs and he decided to salute the Swedish sports legends who came before him. Of course, that includes tennis' own Bjorn Borg.

• Sad news to report: ATP chairman Brad Drewett has died at age 54. We'll have a post with reaction from the tennis world soon.

• ESPN.com's Kamakshi Tandon wonders: Where are the clay specialists to challenge Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams?

It reflects the relative lack of topflight opposition on the surface at the moment. No. 7 Sara Errani, last year's other French Open finalist, is the highest-ranked player who would be at her best on clay. There are a few others, such as 2010 French Open champ Francesca Schiavone, Carla Suarez Navarro, Lucie Safarova and 2011 Stuttgart champ Julia Goerges, but there is no one as formidable as four-time French Open champ [Justine] Henin around to threaten other top-ranked players.

"They don't have anyone else that can really compete with them and really feel comfortable on the clay court," said Antonio Van Grichen, the former coach of [Victoria] Azarenka who is working with Jarmila Gajdosova and other Tennis Australia players. "Errani, Schiavone, [Suarez] Navarro, they are lacking the power.

"Even though Justine didn't have the same power as Serena or Sharapova, she had a lot of other solutions. Errani -- she's a very patient player; she grinds a lot; she hits a lot of balls deep; she knows how to play on clay, but she also lacks other things.

"Justine was more complete."

• Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Rafael Nadal attended the Madrid Open opening ceremony.

• Get to know 26-year-old Alex Kuznetsov, this year's USTA French Open wild-card playoff winner.

• Williams is polite, Azarenka yells and Agnieszka Radwanska is a Chatty Cathy: A ball boy dishes on his experiences from Miami.

• The relationship between journalists and closeted gay athletes is a complicated one.

• For some reason, tennis is well-represented in this SI.com photo gallery of athletes with horses.

The Longform guide to sad retired athletes


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Courtney Nguyen
COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.