PacLife CC/Scouting Report - Day 7

By TennisWorld Contributing Editor, Andrew Burton

Afternoon All.

We have a full day and a long evening ahead of us at Indian Wells.

As I write this, Richard Gasquet just cruised past Juan Ignacio Chela on Stadium 2, or "La Bastille" as we have to call it today.  It's a shame that there are no top 20 Irish players to wear the green on St Patrick's Day - instead, we have Gasquet, followed by Marion Bartoli, followed by PHM vs Tsonga.  Given our proximity to Hollywood, I will keep my eyes peeled for Pierce Brosnan in the crowd.

On Stadium 1, Jelena Jankovic is having little trouble with Ai Sugiyama.  Then we have two interesting ATP matches - Moya-Blake and Donald Young against Rafael Nadal.

On the scouting front, I watched about a quarter of an hour of Nadal hitting with Tommy Haas.  If the shoulder surgeries eventually get the better of Haas, he has a future as a cover model for "Mens Health" and the like.  The gentleman is, um, ripped.

Nadal was concentrating on his serves: hitting with aggression, and getting some quiet feedback from Francis Roig on his shoulder turn.  Haas was hitting about 30 mph slower on his serves, but always landing the ball in exactly the same spot: when I thought of my own struggles with my serve, I had to slip away for a quick cry.

Later in the day, we have Ivanovic-Garbin and Djokovic-Kohlminersdaughter on Stadium 1, with Canas-Monaco and Ferrer-Lee wrapping up Stadium 2.

I'm told that Steve Tignor is here, and I'm expecting Pete to arrive early this afternoon.  I'll be talking with Pete about how to mesh my posts with his - I may try a kind of rolling update, using my trusty Canon A620 (you can think of it as a Ford Focus to Rosangel's Porsche Boxter camera equipment).

One final thing - Pete suggested that just going with my first name was leaving things dangling somewhat, so today I've ripped the veil of anonymity aside.  If I can handle the celebrity as well as Britney, all should be well.