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  • Indian Wells Continues Trend of 2008 Surprises

    3/25/08 4:16 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - It’s been a wild, wacky start to the 2008 season on the ATP Tour and the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California certainly played its part in keeping up the theme. Mardy Fish, runner-up? Few, if any, could have predicted that.

    The season’s first Masters Series event will be remembered most for two specific things: the stunning run of Mardy Fish all the way to the final, and the statement made by Novak Djokovic that the gap between Nos. 1, 2, and 3 in the world is as close as ever.

    Fish pretty much came out of nowhere last week in Indian Wells. Sure he had appeared in two quarterfinals leading up to the Pacific Life Open, but those came at much smaller events (San Jose and Delray Beach). Last season was dismal for Fish and those two showings were not enough to project a breakout performance in Indian Wells. But as it turned out, “strong showing” would be an understatement in describing Fish’s form last week. He cruised through the first three rounds without dropping a set (victims were Florian Mayer, No. 31 Igor Andreev, and No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko), then pulled off two more upsets in third-set tiebreakers (over No. 24 Lleyton Hewitt and No. 7 David Nalbandian). Then came a stunning 6-3, 6-2 rout of No. 1 Roger Federer. Fish finally succumbed to No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the final, but not before recovering from a 6-2 loss in the first set to take the second frame 7-5. The American soared from 98th in the rankings all the way up to No. 40.

    As for Novak Djokovic, well, now more than ever he is putting the pressure on Federer and Rafael Nadal. The Serb is just 425 rankings points behind Nadal, who is less than 1000 behind Federer. In the public perception, he’s much closer to Federer and well past Nadal (at least on hard courts). Nadal was impressive in Indian Wells (with wins over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and nemesis James Blake) until he ran into Djokovic, who was flawless other than the minor second-set letdown against Fish.

    Other standouts at the Pacific Life Open included Tommy Haas, who made it to the quarterfinals before being forced out of the tournament with a sinus problem, and Stanislas Wawrinka, who also reached the quarterfinals before bowing out to Djokovic. Players who will be looking to bounce back in Miami from poor showings in Indian Wells include Andy Roddick, Tomas Berdych, and Davydenko.

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