Bagel (tennis)

The term refers to the similarity between the shape of a zero and the shape of a bagel. The tennis term was coined by player Harold Solomon, and popularized by commentator Bud Collins.[2]

Statistics of the men's singles Grand Slam tournaments from 2000 to 2016 are as follows: at Wimbledon (grass surface), 127 bagels were made; at French Open (clay surface), 267; at the US Open Tennis Championship (hard surface), 275, and at the Australian Open (hard surface), 238.. Björn Borg (five-time Wimbledon champion and six-time French Open champion) recorded 20 6–0 sets at the French Open, and only 5 at Wimbledon.

•    = also won the tournament.

There have been at least 17 best-of-five-set matches which have lasted 18 games (6–0, 6–0, 6–0), colloquially referred to as a "triple bagel", in the Open Era.[7] This is the shortest possible length for a best-of-five-set match, not including retirements or defaults.

Year	Grand Slam	Round	Winner	Loser
1968	French Open	1R	Nikola Špear	Daniel Contet
1973	Davis Cup	Z1	Gondo Widjojo	Tao Po
1981	Davis Cup	PO	Thierry Tulasne	Shinichi Sakamoto
1984	Davis Cup	1R	Emilio Sánchez	Kamel Harrad
1987	French Open	2R	Karel Nováček	Eduardo Bengoechea
1987	Wimbledon	1R	Stefan Edberg	Stefan Eriksson
1987	US Open	1R	Ivan Lendl	Barry Moir
1989	Davis Cup	3R	Hamed-ul-Haq	Faisal Rahman
1991	Davis Cup	1R	Michael Walker	Dishan Herath
1993	French Open	2R	Sergi Bruguera	Thierry Champion
1998	Davis Cup	2R	Gouichi Motomura	Teo Susnjak
1999	Davis Cup	PO	Lin Bing-Chao	Nasser Al-Khelaifi
2001	Wimbledon	Q3	Todd Woodbridge	Johan Örtegren
2005	Davis Cup	2R	Ricardo Mello	David Josepa
2009	Davis Cup	PO	Rui Machado	Valentin Rahine
2011	Davis Cup	2R	Andy Murray	Laurent Bram
2016	Davis Cup	1R	Jarkko Nieminen	Courtney John Lock
2016	Davis Cup	1R	Emilio Gómez	Adam Hornby

• In 1910 in Bruxelles Max Decugis beat Tony Wilding 3–6, 0–6, 7–5, 6–0, 6–0. Wilding was winning 6–3, 6–0, 5–0.
• In 1948 Don Budge won the first match against George Hudson 6–0, 6–0, 6–0 at the US Professional Championship, and against Jerome Adler 6–0, 6–0, 6–1 in the second round.
• In 1969, in the second round of Wimbledon, top seed Rod Laver began with the loss of the first two sets to the unseeded Indian Premjit Lall. However, the game ended in his favor with a score of 3–6, 4–6, 6–3, 6–0, 6–0.
• There are five cases in the history of tennis (two of which occurred in the French Open in one tournament), when the winner of the match lost 2 bagel sets:[12]
  • 1935 (U.S. Pro Tennis Championship) Bill Tilden – Karel Koželuh 0–6, 6–1, 6–4, 0–6, 6–4 [13]
  • 1962 (Tasmanian Championship) Rod Laver – Neale Fraser 7–5, 0–6, 0–6, 6–1, 6–2
  • 1969 (French Open) Stanley Matthews – Ilie Nastase 6–3, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4, 8–6
  • 1969 (French Open) Dennis Ralston – Patricio Rodríguez 6–2, 6–4, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4
  • 1981 (US Open) José Luis Clerc – Mel Purcell 6–3, 0–6, 0–6, 6–4, 6–3
• In 1981, in the first round of the US championship Jimmy Connors, who in the mid-70s almost married Chris Evert, beat her then-husband John Lloyd with a score of 6–0, 6–0, 6–2.[14]
• Suzanne Lenglen won 9 tournaments in which she did not lose a single game in all matches.[15]
• Guillermo Vilas won 2 matches with a score of 6–0, 6–0 in 2 consecutive seasons (1980 and 1981).[16]
• Björn Borg won 116 6–0 sets during his career [17]
• Two women's finals in the history of the Grand Slam tournaments have ended with a double-bagel:[18]
  • 1911 (Wimbledon) Dorothea Lambert-Chambers – Dora Boothby 6–0, 6–0
  • 1988 (French Open) Steffi Graf – Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0
• Swiss tennis player Martina Hingis achieved her first Olympic bagel in singles in 1996, and the second in doubles twenty years later.
• Spanish tennis player Conchita Martínez scored the first double bagel against a player inside the top ten in Hamburg in 1995 when she defeated Magdalena Maleeva.
• Polish tennis player Iga Świątek scored the first double bagel in a WTA 1000 final, defeating top ten Czech player, and former world number 1, Karolína Plíšková in Rome.