Didn't expect this. Robin Soderling didn't have a particularly good Indian Wells. He lost to Phillipp Kohlschreiber in the 3rd round. This was one indication that Soderling wasn't on top of his game and that del Potro would have a good shot of beating Soderling. Before del Potro was injured, he used to play Soderling
Last year, about this time, Roddick was having the best three weeks he's had since, oh, say, Wimbledon. Despite the usual suspects of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray playing both Indian Wells and Miami, all of them were upset somewhat early. Roddick manage to slip through the draw and reach the finals of Indian Wells,
Last year, shortly after his loss to Roger Federer, Andy Murray was in full-mope mode. He had not played much in the weeks afterwards. He felt he was ready to take that next step, finally get the monkey off his back. He was in his second Slam final, playing good tennis to get to this
There were some records that were going to be broken at some point. On the one hand, Rafa had done very well at Indian Wells in odd years, winning in 2009 and 2007. He had also been 5-0 over Djokovic in finals, a fact that apparently he didn't know this head-to-head result when it was
This year, the top singles players came out in force to play doubles. Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez were the defending champs and came back to defend. Roger Federer was teamed up with Stan Wawrinka for the first time in a tournament setting since they won the Olympics in 2008. Novak Djokovic paired up with
Federer seemed like he had an answer to his most pressing problem: Novak Djokovic. Down a set, unable to play consistent enough to rattle Djokovic, Federer needed a new idea. Commentators made an analogy between this match and last night's match between Wozniacki and Sharapova between a steady player and a hard hitter. Wozniacki made
del Potro's return back to tour has been nothing short of incredible. But, despite a title win at Delray Beach, del Potro had not beaten a top ten player. He has played two in 2011. He lost to Andy Roddick in Memphis in the semis, and lost to Fernando Verdasco in San Jose. Few expected
Ah, sometimes you want to play tennis so bad, that you hope a mini-excursion out will still leave you enough tennis to watch. Except, alas, a 4 hour excursion left me missing both the Federer win over Wawrinka, then the rest of what must have been only an hour, followed by a doubles match that
March 16 was a great day for tennis fans at Indian Wells. All the men played fourth round matches. March 17? St. Patrick's Day? Not so good. Two matches were skipped, one men, one women. On the men's side, Tommy Robredo had sustained an injury while beating Sam Querrey. He said he was unable to
It's the dream matchup everyone wanted. Well, almost. Nadal plays doubles irregularly, but typically a bit more often than Roger Federer. With the Olympics a year away, it seems many a top pro is using Indian Wells to practice their doubles skills. Amazingly, Rafael Nadal and partner Marc Lopez are defending champs defeating then number
