{"id":1151,"date":"2010-03-18T22:41:09","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T02:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2010-03-18T22:41:09","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T02:41:09","slug":"old-school-indian-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/old-school-indian-wells\/","title":{"rendered":"Old School Indian Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/default.aspx?term=jankovic&#038;iid=8283101\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.picapp.com\/ftp\/Images\/f\/0\/8\/f\/BNP_Paribas_Open_32d5.jpg?adImageId=11418788&#038;imageId=8283101\" width=\"380\" height=\"248\"  border=\"0\" alt=\"BNP Paribas Open\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear:left;height:0px;overflow: hidden;\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/PicAppPIS\/JavaScript\/PisV4.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Question of the day: can I sit through a tennis match under the brutal sun at Indian Wells? Answer: No. I lasted through the first set of the quarterfinal match between <b>Jelena Jankovic<\/b> and <b>Alisa Kleybanova<\/b> then retreated to the air-cooled media room to dry off my sweat drenched body.<\/p>\n<p>JJ in her beautiful lime green majesty was playing first strike tennis with Kleybanova. That\u2019s the polar opposite of grinding and a bit surprising considering JJ\u2019s back story as a defensive player. Her serve is still tepid but the rest of her game is more expansive than it used to be. <\/p>\n<p>And Kleybanova couldn\u2019t take advantage of JJ\u2019s serve anyway. JJ was up a break and serving for the first set at 5-3 when she hit two double faults to give Kleybanova a break point. Kleybanova then failed to return JJ\u2019s next serve &#8211; an 84mph(135kph) kicker. <\/p>\n<p>All credit to Kleybanova because she beat <b>Kim Clijsters<\/b> to get here but she played like someone who has one lower tier title. She failed to consolidate a break late in the second set by serving up two double faults then gave up her next service game after getting flustered by a deep ball that might have been out.<\/p>\n<p>Passing thought: Who\u2019d have thought that JJ would be in the top ten while her compatriot <b>Ana Ivanovic<\/b> was #28 and dropping? Another passing thought: Is there a better retriever on tour than JJ? Clijsters maybe but JJ is so graceful it\u2019s just a beautiful thing to watch.<\/p>\n<p>While I was waiting for the shuttle to go to dinner, a group of volunteers next to me was bemoaning the boredom of their jobs. There just aren\u2019t that many people here this year. Today\u2019s lineup offered one top ten woman and one top ten man only and this is the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n<p>All in all I\u2019d say it\u2019s old school week here at Indian Wells. JJ\u2019s run has put her into the semifinals without having to face <b>Kusnetsova<\/b> or <b>Clijsters<\/b> and now 30-year-old <b>Ivan Ljubicic<\/b> is in the men\u2019s semifinals. He\u2019s back hitting 134mph(216kph) bombs and, honestly, that\u2019s the problem. Ljubicic beat a <b>Novak Djokovic<\/b> exhausted by Davis Cup, <b>Federer<\/b> is long gone and <b>Davydenko<\/b> left even earlier.   <\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d even call <b>Tomas Berdych<\/b> old school. The last time he won a Masters event was 2005 and he hasn\u2019t gone past the fourth round of a slam since 2007. I feel justified in the term. Berdych took out <b>Fernando Verdasco<\/b> and you wonder how serious everyone is treating the event this year. When Djokovic was knocked out he said he was looking forward to a few days rest before Miami.<\/p>\n<p>Oh well, let\u2019s settle in and see if Berdych can push <b>Rafael Nadal<\/b> as hard as <b>John Isner<\/b> did yesterday. That would make me feel better. Maybe Rafa and Berdych will have a fight. That&#8217;d be fun too. I\u2019ll have the full report later.<\/p>\n<p><a href=http:\/\/twitter.com\/ninarota>twitter.com\/ninarota<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question of the day: can I sit through a tennis match under the brutal sun at Indian Wells? Answer: No. I lasted through the first set of the quarterfinal match between Jelena Jankovic and Alisa Kleybanova then retreated to the air-cooled media room to dry off my sweat drenched body. JJ in her beautiful lime [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}