Not an especially good day for my Stars yesterday - Gulbis and Bellucci both went out, and now Cilic is the last man standing. Oh, and Jeremy Chardy! Almost forgot about him! He upset Mardy Fish today - he is looking very good. Maybe not so bad after all.
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And of course it wasn't so bad over all, because Federer won, and it's like the world has been set to rights. It is so nice to see him with a racquet in his hand again! The scoreline belies it - I think it looks tighter than it was - but he played absolutely beautifully. It's more evident in the stats, I think - only 59% of first serves in, sure, but he won 91% of the time... I think he only lost three points in the entire match on his first serve. And they were all in the first set as well. I was quite pleased.
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He comes up against Dr Ivo next round - is it just me, or do they play all the time? Anyway, Karlovic may have got him once last year, but I'm cheerfully optimistic. Roger Federer: doing it for the kid.
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And over on the women's side, you know who I'm picking to win? I'm extremely prepared to be wrong, but I really liked the look of Ana Ivanovic yesterday. I know she hasn't won a title in the last, like, ever, but the tournament here, to be fair, doesn't have that much depth because everyone is playing pretty badly right now. The one really solid player, Elena Dementieva, is already out of the tournament, and who knows what the rest of the WTA top ten can bring... Sveta Kuznetsova is out as well, and Jelena Jankovic got absolutely trounced yesterday by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. So can Ana do it? She was looking strongest of the lot yesterday... here's see what Dinara Safina can do, because one would imagine she would be the biggest competition.
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More on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova - if she is not in the top ten in the next two years, I will be very surprised. I am officially inducting her into the Stars program (as only the second female inductee, after Sabine Lisicki.) She came up in that same crop as Alize Cornet (also knocked out) but hasn't managed to make too much of a splash yet, despite winning just about every junior Grand Slam for a couple of years. But I think her time is coming... and beating Jelena Jankovic is a great warning sign!
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Oh, and has anyone seen head or tail of Marcos Baghdatis? Don't tell me he's injured again...
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Today's Results
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BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells)
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Men's Draw
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David Ferrer def. Todd Widom, 6-4 7-5
Jeremy Chardy def. Mardy Fish, 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-1)
Nicolas Kiefer def. Bobby Reynolds, 6-4 6-2
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Women's Draw
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Vera Zvonareva def. Petra Kvitova, 6-3 6-1
Caroline Wozniacki def. Kaia Kanepi, 6-3 3-6 6-3
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