Indian Wells - Water Torture

Friday was a jam-packed day of exciting tennis at Indian Wells with the women’s semi-finals and two of the men’s quarterfinals being played. Our intrepid reporter Patrick was in IW for all of the matches and we’ll get to his view on the events of the day a little further on, but first a review of the matches.

The first match of the day was a women’s semi-final encounter between Martina Hingis and Maria Sharapova. These two had already played twice this year coming into yesterday’s match with each player winning once. Sharapova won the last encounter and it appeared that she carried that momentum into this match as she handled Hingis comfortably 6-3, 6-3. Even though she lost on the day, Martina has to be happy with her progress on her return to the tour as she has proved to everyone that she’s a legitimate contender for titles. I’m very curious to see how she matches up with the top ladies in the upcoming clay court season in Europe.

As for Sharapova, she hasn’t won a tournament since the first half of 2005 so her motivation for winning in IW is high. She played extremely well versus Hingis and was simply too aggressive and powerful for the Swiss Miss.

The other women’s semi-final was between Elena Dementieva and 2006 Australian Open finalist, Justine Henin-Hardenne. Henin-Hardenne started off the match on fire and quickly broke Dementieva to take the lead in the first set. The match looked like it wasn’t going to be too competitive, so I decided to head for the gym and work out. I returned home over 90 minutes later to learn that not only was the match still going on, it was only in the second set! Henin-Hardenne was leading 6-2, 5-2 at one point, but it was now 5-5 in the second.

Give Dementieva credit – she never gives up and she’s a tremendous fighter. She’s like water torture on her opponents, and I mean that in a good way. She gets everything back in play and she’s relentless (drip…drip…drip). Her style of play forces her opponents to do something extra with the ball and that leads to more winners and more errors. If the number of errors starts to outnumber the winners, then Dementieva has her opponent right where she wants her. This is clearly what happened yesterday. Henin-Hardenne started playing it safe late in the second and that’s not her game. She’s at her best when she’s forcing the play and dictating to her opponent. Dementieva had gotten to her like a wrestler with a sleeper hold. She choked the aggressiveness out of Justine and laid her down to sleep. Elena won the final two sets 7-5, 7-5.

Of course, I wasn’t disappointed with the result as my membership dues for the JHH fan club are long past due, and I always enjoy her being forced to swallow the bitter pill of defeat, even if it does give her a tummy-ache.

The other two matches of the day were the remaining quarter-finals on the men’s side. First up were James Blake and Igor Andreev, the Russian conqueror of Andy Roddick. I only saw the last couple of games of this match and was impressed with the power of the forehands. Blake’s game has really taken off and one reason for that is renewed confidence in his backhand. He can return effectively off that side and he’s far more consistent in rallies with it than he used to be. Andreev wasn’t consistent enough with his forehand during the match to trouble Blake. With the victory, James enters the top 10 for the first time in his career.

The match that I most anticipated was the final one of the day between Rafael Nadal and Marcos Baghdatis. As the resident Rafael Nadal Kool-Aid drinker, this match-up worried me. Baghdatis is a quick player with a lethal forehand. The key for Rafa would be to dictate play as much as possible and keep the ball up high on the Cypriot’s backhand.

After the first game of the match, I was no longer worried. Although it was a long game, Nadal eventually held and he was playing the points exactly as I expected he would. Baghdatis would show moments of brilliance in the first set, but he couldn’t sustain it long enough to turn the match. At the end of the first set, Nadal came back from 0-30 on Baghdatis’ serve to win the set. He never lost another game as the Aussie Open finalist had no answers for the Raging Bull’s hustle and determination.

The semi-final between Blake and Nadal should be a great match. Blake handled Nadal fairly well in New York at the US Open winning in four sets, but that court was a lot quicker than the stadium court in Indian Wells. That fact will help Nadal today, but it doesn’t mean he’ll win. No player on the ATP Tour is riding the confidence wave right now like James Blake is and he’s going to be tough to beat. Unfortunately for tennis fans, the match won’t be broadcast live as ESPN has commitments to the Women’s NCAA Basketball tournament today. ESPN2 will be showing the best men’s semi-final at 2:30 am EST on Saturday evening/Sunday morning. I bet they show Blake – Nadal. Another option is to sign up for ATP Master Series TV at the Pacific Life Open website. It’s free this week and it should have match highlights loaded up shortly after the completion of each semi-final.

The Patrick Files

Our man in California called last night just after 10 pm Eastern time. I was getting a little worried about our correspondent as we had not heard from him in over 24 hours, and I was concerned that something went awry at the Federer - Ljubicic after-party that our boy most certainly crashed. Nevertheless, all seemed to be going well in IW and Patrick was just settling in for the Nadal – Baghdatis match when we spoke with him. We had last spoken just before the Federer – Ljubicic match, so we’ll begin with that.

Federer v. Ljubicic: “Best display of tennis I have ever seen. Federer made Ljubicic look like a high school kid”. We talked about Ljubicic’s quote that he sees himself as a top 5 player, but that doesn’t mean he’s close to Federer. Ljubo thinks that Nadal is the only one who can challenge the Mighty Fed and that’s only because he is a lefty. The Kool-Aid drinker in me didn’t entirely agree with that quote as there are plenty of leftys on tour who haven’t phased Federer, but there is an element of truth to it. Federer has now played two very clean matches in a row and he should have no trouble with Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand. By the way, it’s nice to see the big Thai playing well again.

Martina Hingis v. Maria Sharapova: “Hingis simply couldn’t handle Sharapova’s power.” Just for the record, there’s no truth to the rumor that our reporter was the one who yelled out “Martina, she’s getting tired” in the second set. At least I hope that there is no truth to it as I just started it.

James Blake v. Igor Andreev: As I’m writing this, I don’t think we discussed this match. Oh well – sorry Mom.

Elena Dementieva v. Justine Henin- Hardenne: “I was really impressed with Dementieva. I was surprised at how big she was. I chatted up Henin-Hardenne’s coach, Carlos Rodriguez, during the match. He told me that the only guy he goes to watch on the men’s tour is Federer (Editor’s Note: do you see the Federer bias in our reporter?). I told him that his game plan for the Australian Open final versus Mauresmo was crap.”

Rafael Nadal v. Marcos Baghdatis (preview): “I think Baghdatis is going to take Nadal out.” Once again, our man’s pro-Federer, anti-Nadal bias clouded his ability to analyze this one. I have to think that Patrick will be a little more impressed with Nadal after last night’s match than he was previously. However, my guess is that he will be picking Blake in today’s semi-final.

Enjoy the women’s final and we’ll check back in again tomorrow and/or Monday for a tournament re-cap.