Indian Wells is some 150 miles north of Los Angeles.  This is the first Masters 1000 event of the year and has historically been a major tournament.  However, until the past decade or so, this tournament was not covered nationally.  Basically, US tennis coverage used to be restricted to the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open and the summer tournaments.  Although tennis is played most of the year, US television would only cover a fraction of the tennis.

Some of that changed with cable.  ESPN began covering the Australian Open.  USA network would cover early rounds of the French Open.  HBO would cover early rounds of Wimbledon.  Then came Tennis Channel which tries to get most of the major tournaments outside the Slams.  Indian Wells and Miami are the first two big Masters 1000 events prior to the clay season.

So who’s coming?  It’s been nearly 6 weeks, but Roger Federer makes his return to tennis at Indian Wells.  His original plan was to play in Dubai where he trains many weeks of the year.  However, Federer had a lung infection and was advised to rest for two weeks with no play.  Federer has since taken an early trip to California and has been there about a week prior to the start of the tournament.  Indian Wells, like Miami, is a bigger than usual tournament, and runs about a week and a half including qualifying.  The first round is played on Thursday.  It’s one of a handful of tournaments where the women also play.

Novak Djokovic is also expected to play.  Of the top 5 players (Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, Murray, and del Potro), only Djokovic played Davis Cup.  Djokovic had to play five sets to beat Isner on clay.  During this win, he smashed his racquet, he was in tears.  Some wondered if Djokovic had become a bit unhinged.  However, he has to get ready to play on hard courts.

Not only is this Federer’s return to professional play, it’s also Rafael Nadal’s return.  Recall that Nadal retired in his quarterfinal match against Andy Murray at the Australian Open.  With so many weeks off, one wonders if Nadal will look to a more aggressive brand of tennis.  As quick as Nadal as, as amazing as he is at retreiving shots and hitting winners from improbable positions, Nadal generally plays a conservative style.  Nadal is almost as conservative as Murray in his play, but expends quite a lot of energy in his topspin style.  Will he try to go the Verdasco route and try to play shorter points so he can play shorter matches and prolong his career?

Speaking of Andy Murray, Murray was slated to play Marseille, then bailed out (Djokovic won that tournament).  He entered Dubai, and won one match, but then lost to Janko Tipsarevic.  In the post-match interview, he said he was treating the match as a practice match, working on shots that he normally does in practice.  It’s clear Murray didn’t really want to be in Dubai, but felt, due to the negative press in Marseille, that he had to be there.  One forgets that the Tipsarevic match was actually pretty close, with Tipsarevic breaking at the end after Murray had broken to get back on serve.

Murray usually wins the bulk of his points on hard court events like Indian Wells, so it will be interesting to see if he decides to play a more aggressive style or not, based on his experiences in Dubai.

Juan Martin del Potro is not going to play Indian Wells, from the latest news.  He had injured his right wrist prior to the Australian Open and lost to Marin Cilic in the quarterfinals.  He played one more tournament then said he needed a month off to recover.  He did not play Davis Cup (which required David Nalbandian to win a crucial fifth match).  He may return in Miami.

Fernando Gonzalez is also planning to skip Indian Wells to help out with relief efforts in Chile, which recently experienced a huge earthquake.  This earthquake was bigger than Haiti, but it hit a relatively unpopulated area of Chile and Chile has more earthquake-resistant buildings than Haiti.  Even so, Gonzalez has chosen to help out.

Nikolay Davydenko hurt his wrist back in Rotterdam and was hoping he could play through it in Dubai.  However, he had to retire to let it rest.  It’s expected that Davydenko will play.  The question is: how’s his wrist doing?

Key questions: is Federer back to his usual self after two weeks of not playing?  Has Nadal recovered sufficiently to play through this and the clay court season?  Is Djokovic going to be too tired from Davis Cup (or erratic) to do well at Indian Wells?  Does Andy Murray have a surprise ready for Indian Wells?

And, there’s Sam Querrey, John Isner, Ernests Gulbis who are all playing pretty well on hard courts.  Are they ready to pull a big upset?