If you have to pick one day to visit Indian Wells to watch the men’s matches, today is the day.  All of the men play today with the culmination of Rafael Nadal playing upstart Somdev Devvarman and Roger Federer playing upstart Ryan Harrison.

For those of you who say Ivo Karlovic is all serve, understand that he breaks player’s serve.  You don’t do that with only a serve.  Today, he faced Albert Montanes, and yes, the big serve helped him to a tiebreak, but the man volleys well, and that slice has actually gotten better.  Only the very best players can really make him pay for using a slice backhand (and he can hit a topspin backhand).  Karlovic shows that you can still hit a good slice at the highest levels in the game.

And the fact of the matter is, Karlovic has a world-class forehand.  He can hit that forehand hard.  Yes, it’s not Federer.  It’s not Nadal.  But he can apply pressure with it.  And when he does, his opponent feels it.  When an opponent knows his chances of breaking are slim to none, that puts an incredible amount of pressure to hold serve.  Every mistake is amplified and ironically enough, this causes more errors.

Karlovic closed out the second set 6-2 and at over 30, Karlovic is making up for the lack of traditional pedigree.  As a poor Croatian, Karlovic did not get the kind of training that most juniors get.  He worked on the one shot he could do by himself: the serve.  And, yes, while his height gives him huge benefits on the serve, the fact is, there are basketball players taller than Karlovic that can’t play tennis, nor serve as well as Karlovic.  Karlovic is routinely criticized.  People should acknowledge the man can play tennis.  He can’t help how important the serve is in the game.  And at his age, he is probably playing the best tennis of his life.

del Potro continues his improbable return to tour beating Phillipp Kohlschreiber in two tiebreaks.  Tommy Robredo crushed Querrey, 6-1, 6-3.  He faces Delpo next, and one has to imagine that Delpo’s chances of reaching the semis is pretty good.

Djokovic continues to embarrass the field including his good buddy, Viktor Troicki.  Again, he gave up only a single game as he did in his previous match against Gulbis.  Perhaps we should not be saying how bad Gulbis played and instead be saying how well Djokovic is playing.  Is he poised to take the mantle of number 1 from Nadal and Federer who have held the spot for many years?

Stan Wawrinka continues his impressive performance.  He beat Berdych back in Chennai in the semis, and beat him again, albeit in three tough sets.  Should Federer beat Harrison, which most people expect, he would face his doubles partner.

Ah, Richard Gasquet.  The French know pressure and they’ve been calling Gasquet the next great French hope since he was a pre-teen.  Gasquet then had the kiss that nearly brought him down.  When he tested positive for cocaine, he was in danger of being banned from the tour.  He came up with the excuse that he went out dancing with women of ill repute who had done cocaine and she caused the problem.   The ATP Tour said “Sure!” and let him off the hook (though one wonders why a non-performance enhancing drug should cause such an issue, except the, yes, bad reputation it might cause).

Gasquet is still moderately young, but it’s taken him about a year to get to this point (he did reach a final sometime last year).  Like his French brethren, Gasquet can play up and down, but his one-handed backhand, perhaps the biggest in tennis, was on display, and he took Roddick in straight sets.  Roddick was in trouble down a break in the 2nd set, but got the break back and had chances to win the set, but Gasquet held tough and won the tiebreak, 7 points to 5.

Rafael Nadal got a tougher battle than usual with Somdev Devvarman, two-time winner of the NCAA Men’s Championships.  Nadal made more errors than usual and found the speedy Devvarman more pesky than usual.  Devvarman broke early, but was unable to secure the break.  He was broken back then broken late in the first set.  Devvarman stayed even in the second set, but fell back 0-40, approached the net, only to be passed by a patented Nadal crosscourt shot outside his reach.

Up next for Nadal is big-serving Ivo Karlovic.

Last match of the day will be Federer playing Harrison who upset the Canadian sensation, Milos Raonic.  This is Harrison’s biggest tournament so far.

The Murray brothers are playing Dolgopolov and Malisse in doubles.  They had won the first set and were up a break in the second, but lost the second set 6-3.  They are playing a champions tiebreak (first to 10 with lead by 2).

EDIT: After taking a huge lead in the tiebreak, the Murray brothers let Malisse and Dolgopolov came back to win the tiebreak, 10-8.  They had the match on their own serve and lost both points.  So much for a potential match with Djokovic-Troicki who lost, in any case, to Bopanna-Qureshi.