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 1 team, Nestor and Zimonjic who have since split up and found new partners.

Federer has teamed up with Olympic gold doubles partner, Stan Wawrinka, who is having a pretty good year this year.  They will play each other in the singles quarterfinals, the winner of which will take on the winner of Djokovic and the surprising, Richard Gasquet.  Gasquet upset Roddick who (again) had a tantrum on court.  Critics are starting to tell Roddick to grow up.

The duo just beat veteran Mark Knowles and Michal Mertinak in straight sets while Nadal-Lopez beat Dlouhy and Hanley in a super tiebreak.  They face each other in the semis tomorrow of doubles.  The winner will face Dolgopolov and Malisse, who beat the Indian-Pakistani duo of Bopanna and Qureshi in the other semis.

It’s so rare to see doubles players meet each other.  We were ever so close to the Murray brothers making it to the semis (they should have, given the lead they had in the super tiebreak or the break they were up in the second set after being up a set), but in the end, blew their chances.