Midway BNP Paribas Open Thoughts
Let’s face it, my musings do not usually start with the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. However, at this years BNP Paribas Open (formerly known as Pacific Life Open) it is definitely the Women’s side of thing that has made headlines thus far. A draw that was already missing the Williams sisters (not due to injury…well physical injury anyway) is now missing 2nd seeded Jankovic, 3rd seeded Dementieva and 6th seeded Kuznetsova. When big names lose early, attendance to future matches typically suffers. I mean, who would really get excited about a potential quarterfinal matchup of Na Li vs. Urzula Radwanska.
However, attedance is one thing tournament organizers and sponsors have not had to worry about yet. As always out in the desert, the locals get a bit tenative leaving their houses at night when it drops to 60, but the weekend day sessions were more packed than I’ve seen in my four years out here. And with today’s session packed with big names – Blake, Federer, Murray…hopefully those trends will continue. Recesssion, reschmession.
The Men’s draw is almost the opposite of the Women’s…no big story lines from opening weekend, but that will lead to lots of intrigue as tournament goes forward. Most notable, perhaps, is the inspired play from the American Men. Blake and Roddick won their first matches (as expected), but so did Michael Russell, Bobby Reynolds, John Isner, Sam Querrey and qualifier Todd Widom. Even more impressive were upsets provided by Isner and Querrey (over Monfils and Stepanek, respectively) to place them in the round of 32. Speaking of the round of 32, I should be on my way to get out there and watch some great matchups today – Gasquet vs. Verdasco, Blake vs. Gonzalez and Federer vs. Karlovic.
Oh and by the way, for those keeping track, I did correctly predict seven of eight first round Davis Cup winners, my only wrong choice was Austria, who fought hard against the Germans, but ultimately lost 3-2.