Railbirding: IWCC Day 6

All right, things are heating up in the desert at the BNP Paribas Open  - it's what i like to call "main draw week,"  and our Tennis.com team of Steve Tignor (over at Concrete Elbow ) and Andrew Burton (right here at TennisWorld) are firing on all cylinders. I hope you're enjoying their coverage as much as I am, although it does seem a little weird, not being there this year. Ah, the economy. . .

It occurred to me this morning that tennis basically is a seven-day sport. No matter how I try, I have a little trouble focusing on the first three or four days of an elongated event like Indian Well. Wait!  you say, what about the hallowed, two-week Grand Slams, those crown jewels of the game and tennis's baseline for greatness?

Well, it's been often said, although not in quite so literal a context, that they are two "different" tournaments - week 1 and week 2. I've always found this to be true, going back to days when I frequently attended the entire fortnight at Slams. Matches that seem so momentous during week 1 simply pall and fade into memory by the quarterfinals, as if they took place too long ago to be relevant to the week 2 proceedings. This can't be entirely true - often, events of week 1 really shape the outcome of week 2. The thing is, those elements are woven into the fabric of week 2, so it isn't as if they're really discounted. They just get buried in an avalanche of new events and sideswiped off the tennis highway.

While the symmetry of two back-to-back, one-week tournaments is lacking at an event like Indian  Wells (and that symmetry really helps us accept the realities of the long-form), the basic approach is both sound and a little frustrating. Unlike majors, these one-week-plus events really are one-week tournaments, at least as far as the top players go, because the bye structure ensures that the top seeds don't really play until the opening weekend. Having the Roger Federers and Ana Ivanovics of this world around for two weekends has been a real boon to promoters, and in some ways you could argue that 10 or 11 day tournaments are an ideal contemporary model in a day and age when the "tennis as festival" approach has emerged as the dominant promotional tool.

Today's game is flooded with stars; just look at the name players you could have seen in action during the first few days of Indian Wells: Sam Querrey, Ivan Ljubicic, Ernests Gulbis, Michael Llodra, Lleyton Hewitt, Nicole Vaidisova, Shahar Peer, Na Li, Sania Mirza. . .

And it's not like you have zero chance of seeing a Rafael Nadal or an Elena Dementieva hit tennis balls; railbirding at the practice sessions has become an art form at most big tournaments, and Indian Wells may be the best place of all venues for indulging that urge, and the upcoming Sony-Ericsson Open isn't too bad, either.

So on with the action, everyone. This is your match-calling post for the day, and Andrew will be throwing you some red meat later. . .

BTW - word has it that a handful of TWibe chicas had a little party the other night at, I think, the Esmerelda hotel, and the upshot was that security showed up at the room at 3 am to bring the party to a halt. I've sworn never to reveal the identify of the enabler/bartender (It was Jenn; I never heard a secret I could keep!)  Way to represent, ladies! (And yes, Jackie, we expect a full report at some later date).

-- Pete