It’s Monday, it’s the day after Daylight Savings Time, and somehow Indian Wells is like 1/3 over. Are you confused? I’m confused. So let’s get caught up, shall we?
1. Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino is into the Fourth Round.
Okay, let’s start here. Arruabarrena-Vecino took out Qualifier Sesil Karantcheva, No. 22 seed Varvara Lepchenko, and No. 14 seed Roberta Vinci to make the fourth round here in Indian Wells where she will face Maria Sharapova.
Arruabarrena-Vecino is a 20-year-old Spaniard ranked No. 87 in the world. A talented up-and-comer, she already has 11 ITF singles titles, one WTA title, and one WTA 125 title this year in Cali. (I am getting conflicting reports as to whether the 125s officially count as WTA titles or not. I don’t think anyone knows, so I’ll just keep them separate.)
Her biggest win (rankings-wise) before today was taking out No. 22 Zheng in Beijing last year before falling to Kerber, so she can play on hard courts. And if you’re looking for a fun fact:
@linzsports Her father is a lithographer. I had to google that and I’m not even ashamed. #larafacts
— unseeded & looming (@unseededlooming) March 11, 2013
2. Sara Errani and Petra Kvitova have both slayed their Indian wells demons, or at least the really, really embarrassing ones.
Both ladies are into the fourth Round of Indian Wells for the first time in their careers.
Errani continues to beat the players she’s supposed to beat, which has led to her getting 20 (!!) wins already this year. She’ll face Marion Bartoli in the fourth round, so anything is possible. And I mean anything.
Meanwhile Kvitova continues to routinely impress as she slays her North American demons. She’s into the fourth round where she’ll face Klara Zakapalova.
3. Oh yeah, Klara Zakopalova is in the Fourth Round too.
Alright, there’s a few things we need to talk about here. Did you guys know that Zakapalova is 31 years old? Did you know she’s currently at a career high ranking of No. 22 and is seeded no. 19 at this tournament?
I honestly didn’t know either of these things. I’m actually embarrassed by how little I know about her. She took out Peer and Cibulkova easily, and since I didn’t know much more other than her very fake blonde hair, I went to my personal Wikipedia, Twitter. My followers did not disappoint.
@linzsports The best known fact about her is that everyone is always shocked when they find out she's 30+.
— Jay Jarrahi (@JayJarrahi) March 11, 2013
@linzsports Baseliner, good mover, weak serve, great returner, always looks like someone killed her puppy on court…
— Lacy Watson (@crazylace01) March 11, 2013
@linzsports 3 set queen, loves grass, beat Petra in a 75(?)K final back in…2007 or 2008 I think.Will be a tough customer.
— Lacy Watson (@crazylace01) March 11, 2013
@linzsports Also has a new coach this year.Done wonders for her.
— Lacy Watson (@crazylace01) March 11, 2013
@linzsports She’s never won a main draw match at the USO, 0-9. On the flipside, she beat Sharapova & Seles at the 03 AO in her GS debut.
— unseeded & looming (@unseededlooming) March 11, 2013
@linzsports I think serena once said she was the hardest opponent she faced when asked who was
— Raymond Roman (@Roman_Check) March 11, 2013
So there you have it.
4. Jelena Jankovic went onto court looking like this:
Jelena Jankovic, the newly crowned Queen of Bogota, is somehow still getting byes in big tournaments. This is how she rewards us:
Photo by @jdenfield.
She also lost 6-0, 2-6, 5-7 to Kuznetsova in R2, which is just a so very JJ scoreline.
5. Here are all the seeds that have fallen so far:
The bottom half of the WTA draw is into the fourth round already, while everyone else is in the third Round:
WTA fallen seeds:
No. 12 Dominika Cibulkova (R3- Zakopalova)
No. 14 Roberta Vinci (R3- Arruabarrena-Vecino)
No. 15 Sloane Stephens (R2- Radwanska)
No. 16 Lucie Safarova (R2- Rybarikova)
No. 17 Ekaterina Makarova (R2- Muguruza)
No. 18 Jelena Jankovic (R2- Svetlana Kuznetsova)
No. 20 Su-Wei Hsieh (R2- Jamie Hampton)
No. 22 Varvara Lepchenko (R2- Arruabarrena-Vecino)
No. 23 Tamira Paszek (R2- Mallory Burdette)
No. 25 Carla Suarez Navarro (R3- Sharapova)
No. 26 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (R2- Larsson)
No. 27 Sorana Cirstea (R3- Radwanska)
No. 31 Yaroslava Shvedova (R2- Tsurenko)
ATP fallen seeds:
No. 4 David Ferrer (R2- Anderson)
No. 9 Janko Tipsarevic (R2- Gulbis)
No. 14 Juan Monaco (R2- Matosevic)
No. 15 John Isner (R2- Hewitt)
No. 21 Philipp Kohlschreiber (R2- Paire)
No. 22 Alexandr Dolgopolov (R2- Berlocq)
No. 25 Jeremy Chardy (R2- Phau)
No. 26 Martin Klizan (R2- Lu)
No. 28 Julien Benneteau (R2- Dodig)
No. 29 Fernando Verdasco (R2- Nieminen)
No. 30 Mikhail Youzhny (R2- L. Mayer)
May I just take a second to note that two ATP top 10 players are already out of the draw, while all top 10 women remain. #hormones
6. Not a stand-out tournament for up-and-comers, with a couple of notable exceptions.
Laura Robson, Sloane Stephens, and Heather Watson, the much-touted threesome from the sensationalistic American and British media machines, all failed to win a single match at Indian Wells. Bummer. But that doesn’t mean that all hope was lost. Americans Taylor Townsend, just 16 years old, and Madison Keys, 17, both won a match before falling to a Grand Slam Champion in the second round (Townsend lost to Ivanovic, Keys to Stosur).
7. Mardy Fish is back — and is one of only three Americans left in the singles!
It’s been wonderful to see Mardy Fish come back to the tennis world after he struggled with heart problems for most of the last year. He’s still very tentative about everything, and keeping expectations very low, but he did manage to squeeze by Bobby Reynolds in three sets in his debut. He’ll face a much stiffer task against Tsonga in the third round, but just being out there is a huge victory for one of the nice guys on tour.
He’s excited.
Man it’s nice to play tennis again. #ihavemissedyou
— Mardy Fish (@MardyFish) March 10, 2013
And so is everyone else:
Hell yes @mardyfish !!!!
— andyroddick (@andyroddick) March 10, 2013
Besides Mardy, Sam Querrey (took out Karlovic, now faces Matosevic) and Jamie Hampton (took out Mattek-Sands and Hsieh, now faces U. Radwanska) are the only other Americans in singles. Isner crashed out to Hewitt, Jack Sock squandered a match point to Karlovic, and Harrison lost to Nadal in R2. The Williams Sisters still don’t play Indian Wells, and Andy Roddick is still retired.
Oh, and I’m just going to sneak this in here — Sam Querrey is now your No. 1 American man. Thanks, John.
8. I know we’ve already been over upsets, but here are a few ATP scorelines that are a bit lopsided/shocking:
Benoit Paire, hardly one to make things easy on himself, notches a pretty straightforward 6-4, 6-2 win over No21 PEH Kohlschreiber. #bnppo13
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) March 9, 2013
Nieminen d. Verdasco 6-0, 6-1. Yes, you read that right. #bnppo13
— 10sworld.com (@10sworld) March 9, 2013
Gulbis is streaking but an embarrassing effort from No9 Tipsarevic. Loses in 6-2, 6-0 in just 47 minutes. Won 9 pts in second set. #bnppo13
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) March 10, 2013
9. There is a lot of complaining by the boys.
As the ladies for the most part have gone quietly about their business, the men have been complaining about almost everything.
Rafael Nadal has called the new time-enforcement rule “a disaster.”
Tsonga and Blake both had arguments with Fergus Murphy in their match last night.
James still going on about the overrules Fergus is and is not making. James thinks Fergus’ ego is getting in the way.
— Ang (@4AllSurfaces) March 11, 2013
Umpire getting earful from Tsonga, expressing problem with Blake moving cap all the time. Umpire says he’ll watch out for it. Doha De ja Vu?
— Jake Davies (@jakedavi5) March 11, 2013
Fergus Murphy to James Blake: “I know a bit about umpiring, and you know a bit about playing.”
— Ricky Dimon (@RD_Tennistalk) March 11, 2013
Tsonga with umpire Fergus Murphy, complaining :”every year I play here there is a guy in the corner making noise when I play”…
— Steph Trudel (@TrudelSteph) March 11, 2013
What was Tsonga all bothered about after winning the set? twitter.com/lawanda50/stat…
— LaWanda (@lawanda50) March 11, 2013
Last parting shot …. men and their hormones.Jo and Blake both jabbering too much.#done
— Ataraxis (@Ataraxis00) March 11, 2013
Even David Ferrer, whose woes at Indian Wells continued in a second round loss to Kevin Anderson (he has a losing record at the tournament), got in on the action:
Men!
10. Doubles:
Indian Wells always has a great doubles draw, so I figure we’d get caught up on that too.
ATP “Upsets” (I use that term very, very loosely here):
[WC] A Murray (GBR) / J Murray (GBR) d [5] R Lindstedt (SWE) / N Zimonjic (SRB) 64 46 10-4
[WC] J Blake (USA) / M Fish (USA) d D Marrero (ESP) / F Verdasco (ESP) 64 64
G Dimitrov (BUL) / F Nielsen (DEN) d [6] A Qureshi (PAK) / J Rojer (NED) 75 75
J Benneteau (FRA) / R Gasquet (FRA) d [8] M Fyrstenberg (POL) / M Matkowski (POL) 64 76(4)
*[Alt] P Andujar (ESP) / D Gimeno-Traver (ESP) d B Paire (FRA) / S Wawrinka (SUI) 46 62 10-8
WTA Upsets:
S Hsieh (TPE) / S Peng (CHN) d [1] S Errani (ITA) / R Vinci (ITA) 62 63 (WOW!!!)
V Dushevina (RUS) / A Panova (RUS) d [2] A Hlavackova (CZE) / L Hradecka (CZE) 64 76(4)
D Hantuchova (SVK) / A Medina Garrigues (ESP) d [5] L Huber (USA) / M Martinez Sanchez (ESP) 76(2) 16 10-5
K Date-Krumm (JPN) / C Dellacqua (AUS) d L Raymond (USA) / S Stosur (AUS) 61 46 10-6
Best doubles matches Monday:
[1] Bob Bryan (USA)/Mike Bryan (USA) v John Isner (USA)/Sam Querrey (USA)
[WC] Andy Murray (GBR)/Jamie Murray (GBR) v Treat Huey (PHI)/Jerzy Janowicz (POL)
[WC] James Blake (USA)/Mardy Fish (USA) v Feliciano Lopez (ESP)/Milos Raonic (CAN)
Enjoy the second week of Indian Wells, everyone!
“WHAT FUCKING ARE YOU DOING? WHAT FUCKING ARE YOU DOING!?”
At least he didn’t attack another baby.
That’s an unnecessary cheap shot. Completely below a level that should be expected even from an amateur blog.
Clearly my sarcasm font didn’t come across!
Ferrer would never do something as devilish as attack a baby. Does hitting a ball in the general direction of a crying baby count as infantile abuse? Heck no!
On the WTA doubles, top 2 seeds losing early is a surprise especially Errani and Vinci. Huber, no matter who she is playing with, has a poor record at Indian Wells so her losing is no surprise. Raymond/Stosur, who defeated Mattek-Sands/Mirza, losing is also no surprise as Date-Krumm/Dellacqua recently won a title.
On the ATP doubles, Isner/Querrey(2 of your favs) has a chance to keep the Bryans 0 for Indian Wells. Polish team does not do well in the first part of the year while Benneteau/Gasquet is a decent team. Now, Blake/Fish winning over Marrero/Verdasco is a mild surprise as the Spainards had a good team to the tune of 4 titles.
Jankovic looks like the new-wave cheerleader with that outfit and Gulbis has to be the red hot tennis player at the moment as he steamrolled past Tipsarevic. Now, can he win over Nadal in R4 provided if he gets past Seppi?
P.S. – I can not wait until the mid-tournament podcast especially the discussion on the Americans and their disappointment along with Ferrer keeping up with his tradition on the Latin America/US Spring Hard Courts.
Ha ha! Snorted out my coffee with that one! Was it IW last time when David sent that ball up at/near the baby?
Maybe he doesn’t like the place?
snicker…
Who is Laura Watson? Also WTA 125s are challenger level not tour level. I know this because WTA organized a 125 tournament here in Pune last year – the Royal Indian Open (the smallest tournaments have the grandest names!) but it was part of the “WTA Challenger Series”. So I am guessing Pune is NOT part of the “Tour”.It’s all a bit confusing no? What about the ITF challengers? Are they equivalent to WTA challengers?
Hah- thanks for catching my typo Karunya, fixed! The WTA 125s are definitely between the ITF Challengers and WTA tour events, but it’s confusing because they’re included with WTA tournaments on the scoreboard (whereas ATP Challengers are separate) and Lara’s WTA page said she had 2 WTA titles and 11 ITF titles- and they grouped the 125 in with the WTA titles. But Kevin Fischer of the WTA said they weren’t official WTA titles. It’s all very confusing– I just want to know how to count them!
someone should ask jo-w his hormonal issues from last night!
I saw the dress that Jankovic is wearing in the pic above on the rack at the Fila store at Indian Wells. It looks really cute on the rack, and might have looked nice if she didn’t have that sweater on. With the sweater, it looks like a bad cheerleading outfi.