It’s a good thing I can sit inside in the media center overlooking the stadium here at Indian Wells. This is the desert, it’s next to Palm Springs, but it’s been cold and rainy. A short poll of the locals found one person who has lived here for twenty years and had never seen snow this low on the surrounding mountains. This is not the place where you expect to sit in the your jacuzzi looking out at the snow.

Everyone is here, nine of the top ten men and three of the top five women and, most exciting of all, there is a good chance we’ll see a Rafael Nadal – Roger Federer final for the second week in a row. Welcome to the Pacific Life Open, sometimes called the fifth major. It’s one of only two tournaments that run for two weeks with both men and women outside of the majors. The other is the next event on the calendar, The Nasdaq 100 in Miami. Both of these events are Masters Series tournaments. Three times each year, Masters Series events follow each other on consecutive weeks. Hell, why not make the entire schedule the Masters Series and make the top players turn up every week.

I’m sitting here ignoring the Lleyton Hewitt – Rainer Schuettler match unfolding beneath me but I should be paying attention because Hewitt and Schuettler are playing a terrific three set match. Hewitt broke Schuettler to go up 3-2 in the third then had triple match point on Schuettler’s serve but couldn’t close out until the next game.

If life isn’t hard enough for Israelis, the tennis world isn’t treating them that well either. Last week in Dubai, players were criticized for taking large appearance fees while ignoring Dubai’s seamy reputation for laundering terrorist’s money and hosting the sex slave industry. That’s bad enough but Dubai also refuses to issue visas to those holding Israeli passports. Earlier this year, Sania Mirza was scheduled to play doubles with Israeli Shahar Pe’er at the Bangalore Open but changed her mind because because Indian Muslim groups threatened protests. Newspapers reported that Mirza told Pe’er, “It’s best that we don’t play together this time to prevent protests against my cooperation with an Israeli. There is no reason to arouse their ire (Muslims).”

Evidently Mirza also felt pressure to play doubles since she went on to to play with Liezel Huber and win the doubles event at Bangalore. One thing that sets her apart from other young players is her combativeness, she’s seldom out of a match as you’ll see below, but she could have shown some of that towards her fellow Muslims. It’s not the easiest time to be a Muslim either but Mirza should have stood up for Pe’er.

Let’s check in on Mirza to see is if she is still impatient and inconsistent. She has a sledgehammer for a forehand and a good serve but she goes for winners far too often. Today she played Elena Dementieva in her third round match. Dementieva has her own problems. Everyone loves her game but that serve. The way her career is going, it will be defined by misadventures in serving. “Dementieva, I remember her, she was a great fighter but couldn’t hit the side of a barn with her serve.” Good thing she’s a fighter, look at this line: she had 18 double faults and was broken 8 time. And she won the match!

Twice Dementieva had three double faults in a row. The first time came in the first game in the second set – Mirza had won the first set by giving up only two breaks to Dementieva’s three. Mirza pounced on her next serves by hitting big returns but all she did was make errors and she let Dementieva win the game. Mirza was so discouraged she gave up two breaks and was down 0-4. Dementieva’s second triple helped Mirza get back to 4-5 but that’s as close as she’d come. The third set had the same pattern. Mirza was down 5-1 and fought back to 4-5 but lost the set and match, 7-5, 4-6, 4-6.

I’d like to switch over to a parallel universe where Dementieva had a consistent serve and Mirza focused on strategy a little more and power a little less. Then we’d be looking at an excellent match. As it is we’ll have to settle for for two flawed fighters slugging it out. One of them, Dementieva, a top ten player successfully covering up her flaws and the other, Mirza, trying to figure out how to play the game.