By Tennis World Contributing Editor Andrew Burton
Morning, all.
This will be your place to match call and comment on Sunday's play at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. The picture above gives you a pretty good feel for Stadium 1 during the Saturday match between Ivanovic and Yakimova. Ivanovic fell into an early 0-3 hole, but her opponent didn't seem to get the memo that an upset might be on, and went down 4 and 3. No such luck for Elena Dementieva, and later in the day Daniela Hantuchova had to save 2 MPs in the third set against the Belgian Yanina Wickmayer.
The stadium, to my eyes, looks about 25% full at 4pm in the day session. I think it was about 60% full for Federer-Gicquel, the next match on Stadium 1. Both Federer and Andy Murray came through without too much hassle yesterday: today it will be the turn of Djokovic and Nadal.
This is the third year in succession I've attended IW. In 2007, I booked tickets for the QF stage onwards, confident that Federer would extend his then 41-match winning streak at least that far.
Ahem.
In 2008, I took fewer chances, flying down from Calgary for the first Saturday of the tournament. I've taken the same tack this year. I got to the tournament grounds at about 3pm, and quickly said hello again to Steve Tignor and Kamakshi Tandon, and a few other journalists I've gotten to know on my trips to IW and Toronto.
Pete and I have swapped duties for this trip: he's in New York, and is going to post Crisis Centers during the week. I'll be match reporting and trying to give you a sense of color and atmosphere. Speaking of which, the desert evening has begun to draw in, and it just caught Jelena Jankovic cold - or rather, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova did.
If you will be at IW this week and want to say hi, send me an eMail (fables3@yahoo.com). As always, enjoy today's tennis!