Indian Wells - Collision Course

Both the WTA Tour and the ATP Tour are in Indian Wells this week for one of the two big hardcourt events of the American Spring season. Behind Enemy Lines has been following the tournament closely both on TV and via the Internet, and we also have a correspondent in California giving us first hand accounts of various matches and other happenings at the tournament site.

Thus far, the tournament has had some entertaining matches and high profile upsets. Andy Roddick continues his disappointing ride in 2006 with a third set implosion against Russian Igor Andreev that resulted in a 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 loss. Roddick hasn’t come close to winning a tournament this year and all of his losses have been to players ranked outside of the top 25. Changing coaches hasn’t helped his confidence nor his tactics. For some strange reason, he is still trying to rally from four feet behind the baseline. With his game, he won’t be successful from that position on the court.

Lleyton Hewitt is another player with disappointing results in 2006 and he’s sliding down the rankings. Hewitt was toppled by up-and-comer Thomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, and he’ll most likely drop out of the top 10 next week.

Martina Hingis’ comeback continues to move forward and she’s already earned a semi-final berth in Indian Wells. Her fourth round victory over Lindsay Davenport showed that she can certainly compete with the women in the top 5. Hingis will meet Maria Sharapova next and she’s 1-1 with her this year.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal appear to be on a collision course to meet in the final. Federer was shaky against long-time nemesis from the juniors, Olivier Rochus, but he pulled it out in 3. Roger was far more dominating yesterday in his encounter with Richard Gasquet. I watched the highlights on ATP Master Series TV (free this week for Indian Wells) via the Pacific Life Open website, and Federer’s shot making was devastating. Gasquet beat the Swiss master at Monte Carlo last year, but didn’t come close to replicating that performance yesterday.

Nadal has quietly moved through the draw with straight set victories and will next face this year’s Australian Open finalist, Marcos Baghdatis. This should be a very interesting match-up. Baghdatis is just as quick as Nadal, but the key will be, as it is for any right hander playing Nadal, how he handles hitting high backhands off of Rafa’s topspin forehand. Sebastien Grosjean didn’t do very well with that shot yesterday and he went down weakly to the world’s number 2.

There’s been some speculation in the blogosphere that Federer doesn’t like playing Nadal specifically because his inside-out forehand weapon is blunted versus the Spaniard because it goes into Nadal’s forehand. If the two men advance to the final to meet each other for the second time in three weeks, I’m very interested to see what Federer tries to do tactically. He’s 1-3 versus Nadal and probably should be 0-4.

As stated earlier, we have a buddy, Patrick, in Indian Wells this week and he’s been checking in with us a couple of times a day to give us the lowdown. Before getting into Patrick’s take on various things, we should disclose the fact our correspondent is a Federer fan. In fact, fan may not be a strong enough word to describe Patrick’s devotion to the world’s number one. Worshipper is probably more appropriate. With that in mind, let’s recap some of our conversations from the last few days (in all cases, I’m either paraphrasing these conversations or making them up entirely).

· Andre Agassi v. Tommy Haas: Patrick called me from the stadium just as the match was starting. I could hear the crowd getting revved up for Agassi. Apparently, he is viewing from a luxury box and is about 40 feet from the players. The next day, we talked about Agassi’s new skin-tight muscle shirt. I didn’t think it was a good look for Agassi and I don’t think we’ll see it again. We also discussed Agassi’s collapse at 5-4, 40-15 in the first set. Patrick gave Haas credit for making Agassi work harder in that game. Agassi pressed and made errors. After that, Agassi continued to make errors throughout the second set and Haas sailed through.

· Olivier Rochus v. Roger Federer: This was a bit of a rough outing for the number 1 seed and it may have all started when Patrick’s cell phone went off early in the first set. That elicited an icy stare from the mighty Federer and probably shattered all of Patrick’s dreams of hanging out with his hero after the match. After Rochus won the first set, Patrick vacated the stadium and called me. He was distraught with his hero’s performance and his own possible contribution to it. Fleeing the stadium was the best thing he could do for Roger’s karma as Fed was shanking forehands all over the place. Once Patrick left, Federer righted the ship and won in three.

· Rafael Nadal v. Sebastien Grosjean: Going into this match, our correspondent thought Nadal would have a tough time with the Frenchman. That turned out to be a bad prediction. Nadal rolled through Grosjean, breaking him 5 times in the process. Patrick was surprised at how little fight Grosjean displayed. Our man in Indian Wells thinks that Baghdatis will give Nadal a sterner test in the next round. I think he’s right.

· Andy Roddick v. Igor Andreev: “Andreev simply outplayed Roddick. He’s got a huge forehand and a better backhand.”

· Today: Patrick went over to La Quinta to watch Federer practice before he meets Ivan Ljubicic in the quarters. Needless to say, our boy was impressed. The highlight of the practice session was when Federer’s coach, Tony Roche, winked at Patrick.

· On the tournament overall: “Indian Wells is great. The tournament facility is nice and not too crowded. I would definitely recommend coming to this tournament next year.” There’s a good chance that we’ll follow that suggestion next year.

· James Blake v. Tommy Haas: “Blake was the most impressive player so far. He was crushing his down the line forehand and Haas couldn’t handle it. Haas would hit a huge forehand and Blake would hit it back harder.” James Blake has a dangerous game on hard courts and he’s got a lot of confidence right now, so the top guys will have to be at their best when playing him. Remember how Blake handled Nadal at the US Open last fall?

That’s all we’ve got on Indian Wells at the moment. We’ll check in again sometime over the next few days with some more pearls of wisdom from our man Patrick in CA.