*!71314314
*
by Pete Bodo
Alright, alright. Sorry to be AWOL for a spell there, but I had a lot going on here in the office and I wanted to clear the decks before we settle in to jaw about Indian Wells. I've got a post up at ESPN today on the unusual opportunity - or threat - Indian Wells represents for so many of the women. Basically, the event is on track to be a free-for-all, but a fairly tense one for some, including the defending champion Vera Zvonareva and a former Indian Wells champion (as well as former No. 1 and former French Open titlist), Ana Ivanovic. They meet in the third round, and can it really be true that if Ivanovic loses, her ranking heads south of the big Five-Oh?
Say it ain't so. Can you say, "tough draw"?
Everyone's parsed the draws by now, and the event is underway. But I'm still enjoying a recent pastime I discovered: perusing the qualifying draws. It's difficult to quantify the quality of any given qualifying draw; I suppose the statistically accurate way to do it would be to crunch the ranking numbers and determine the average ranking of the qualifiers. I prefer the more sexy if less reliable method - look through the draws and see who you recognize.
For example, are you aware that French Open champion Gaston Gaudio attempted to qualify, but was beaten in the first round? He lost to a wild-carded qualifier, Serbia's Filip Krajinovic. But let's remember that Filip is one of the the most highly touted young prospects at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. Bad luck, Gaston - text Ana (you should only be so lucky as to have that number. . .).
Given Krajinovic's growing reputation, I was surprised to see that he was crushed, 6-1, 6-0 by the USA's Tim Smyczek, who thereby landed in the main draw. Smyczek lost a grand total of three games in his two qualifying matches. Is this a kid of special interest to we Americans?
And for those of you who have been wringing your hands, hoping for news of Vince "Vindawg" Spadea, he also showed up for qualifying and got his Kangol cap handed to him, 6-0 in the third, by Thiago Alves. Bjorn Phau (I wonder what happened to the rest of his last name?) was also in that third quarter of the qualifying draw, and he joined Alves as a qualifier.
I was bummed that Somdev Devvarman fell one match short in qualifying, losing to No.14 seed Stefan Koubek - a guy Devarrman might have faced in the third round of a Grand Slam event a few years ago, had Devarrman found a way to get himself in that position. We tend to forget how many of the players come and go as their results fluctuate. There's nothing like tennis to remind us of that old saw, Out of sight, out of mind. . . It's cruel, isn't it?
Bobby Reynolds qualified (he beat top-seeded Denis Istomin), but Robert Kendrick did not - he lost to Nick Lindahl, who then dropped a heartbreaker (6-4 in the third) to Ricardo Mello. I've got no beef with Mello being in the main draw of a Masters event, and he did beat Dick Norman, the world's oldest man, in the first round. Boy, I'd love to see Norman, who was the oldest guy on the tour as far back as 2006 (he's over forty, and that's no typo!), qualify for a singles main draw.
All of you Ramon Delgado fans will be glad to hear he qualified, as did Rainer Schuettler (this is by definition a dumb question, but what on earth was he doing in the qualifying?), while Donald Young won a round but then lost to Ilya Marchenko.
The women's qualifying draw had some interesting elements, too. If you told me two years ago that Michelle Larcher de Brito would be struggling to qualify for the main draw here, I would have been surprised. Ditto for Karolina Sprem. But let's hear it for Uzbekistan's Akgul Amanmuradova, who made it through, as did U.S. players Shenay Perry and Sloane Stephens. Michaella Krajicek, who I expect to see back on the main tour sometime soon, won a match but then fell short via a three-set loss to Petra Martic of Croatia.
And let's have a moment of silence for Tamarine Tanasugarn, who dropped just one game in her first match but then won only four as she was put out by Nuria Llagostera Vivies.
Don't worry, Tamarine, you'll get payback at Wimbledon, like you always do!
Feel free to comment on today and tomorrow's matches here, although I think Jackie-Oh will have a Deuce Club post for you later on. . .