{"id":1194,"date":"2010-03-21T00:54:42","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T04:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2010-03-21T00:54:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T04:54:42","slug":"a-viral-malaise-hits-indian-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/a-viral-malaise-hits-indian-wells\/","title":{"rendered":"A Viral Malaise Hits Indian Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/default.aspx?term=ljubicic&#038;iid=8301321\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.picapp.com\/ftp\/Images\/0\/7\/f\/2\/BNP_Paribas_Open_c0d6.jpg?adImageId=11504005&#038;imageId=8301321\" width=\"380\" height=\"561\"  border=\"0\" alt=\"BNP Paribas Open\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.pis.picapp.com\/IamProd\/PicAppPIS\/JavaScript\/PisV4.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This edition of Indian Wells has been weird, just weird. When 96 players turn up in a draw, there are usually a number of gripping matches that come with them but it didn\u2019t really happen. Take today. There were two three set matches in the men\u2019s semifinals and neither one had me on the edge of my seat.<\/p>\n<p><b>Rafael Nadal<\/b> looked like his normal self when he broke 31-year-old <b>Ivan Ljubicic<\/b> in the first and last game of the opening set. Then, long about the end of the second set, Rafa didn\u2019t look like himself. <\/p>\n<p>Looby hit a deep shot that Rafa should have been able to handle but didn\u2019t then Rafa hit a double fault and that was it. Looby evened the match. Rafa was still in a malaise at the beginning of the third set and lost his serve. Viral malaise I\u2019d have to say.<\/p>\n<p>The problem isn\u2019t that Indian Wells, as one of the journalists described it today, is a \u201cquiet and sleepy kind of place full of rather ancient people.\u201d It\u2019s always been a quiet and sleepy kind of place full of rather ancient people yet we\u2019ve had strings of fantastic matches here before. <\/p>\n<p>The players just didn\u2019t seem to be up for it. <b>Nicolas Almagro<\/b> walked off against <b>Andy Murray<\/b> with an ankle injury that didn\u2019t look all that bad, <b>Novak Djokovic<\/b> didn\u2019t turn up in his match against Looby due to Davis Cup exhaustion, Murray started his match against <b>Robin Soderling<\/b> losing the first five games and didn\u2019t really get going till the end of the second set when it was too late and lost in the tiebreaker anyway.<\/p>\n<p>We sat there in the media center tapping our fingers waiting for Rafa to perk up and put Looby away and I, meanwhile, received the following text message: \u201cWTF w\/ Nadal?\u201d That same person suggested I ask Rafa why he didn\u2019t volley more considering that he\u2019s in the men\u2019s doubles final today and that was the problem. Rafa put off his media session till after his doubles match which was hours later. Unless something was wrong, he just didn\u2019t seem to care enough.<\/p>\n<p>And, as someone said to Looby after the match: \u201cDid you think you\u2019d ever see the day when Nadal would be out of the singles and in the doubles final?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rafa broke back right away in the third set then had a match point at 4-5 with Looby standing at the net &#8211; a perfect setup for a typical Rafa passing shot on a critical point. Instead, Rafa aimed right at Looby\u2019s belly button and missed low into the net. <\/p>\n<p>Rafa won exactly one point in the tiebreaker and I\u2019m not the only one who was puzzled. <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisReporters\">Matt Cronin<\/a> &#8211; who\u2019s way better at this stuff than I am &#8211; wondered aloud on twitter why Rafa was so &#8220;tentative.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All credit to Looby. I love the guy. Always have. He\u2019s always been one of the more mature and insightful players on tour and he came up with 17 aces and a bunch of groundstroke winners against the toughest baseliner in the game. And when asked about <b>Andy Roddick<\/b> as his possible opponent in the final, he said that Andy is \u201cpushing the ball back\u201d then added, quickly, \u201cbut he\u2019s doing it well.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>I guess Looby wanted to temper his assessment of Andy as a pusher \u2013 a defensive player who just gets the ball back over the net. After Andy\u2019s semifinal match with Soderling I planned on trying to provoke him a bit by saying: \u201cLjubicic called you a pusher. What\u2019re you gonna do about it?\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Before I could, though, someone put it in a more polite way and Andy responded with words that said he didn\u2019t care but body language that showed some irritation. He should be a proud pusher because he outlasted a very hot Soderling by fending off numerous deep hard shots and, most of all, returning so well that it probably made the difference in the match.<\/p>\n<p>Andy has never won this event and Looby has never won a Masters event. We will have one extremely happy tennis player at the end of the men\u2019s final tomorrow. My attention will already be on its way to Miami to see if we can turn up the heat a little bit in every way possible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/twitter\">twitter.com\/ninarota<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This edition of Indian Wells has been weird, just weird. When 96 players turn up in a draw, there are usually a number of gripping matches that come with them but it didn\u2019t really happen. Take today. There were two three set matches in the men\u2019s semifinals and neither one had me on the edge [&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-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","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=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}