WHEN TENNIS GETS GOING, TENNIS GOES INDIAN WELLS

So one of my favourite tournaments of the year starts this week and I am all excited about it. I have tracked many of my favorite tennis players through twitter and subscribed to many RSS feeds of various tennis site to be completely up-to-date as possible. It’s time to get ready for a good time, sunny weather and Eurosport.

I have read Bobby Chintapalli’s comprehensive list of favorites to win the tournament and I agree with most of them.  The only big name that was missing from that list was Caroline Wozniacki. Though I understand the criteria Chintapalli to compile the list and her reasons to leave out Wozniacki from her, otherwise, great list.

Chintapalli argues, and I quote:

I had to start somewhere, and I started with the players who have the best match win percentages so far this year. Of course there are many other great players with the potential to go far at Indian Wells. (Caroline Wozniacki’s clearly very good and very good for tennis, but her match win percentage this year is 57.1% — that’s the only reason she’s not on this list.)

Like I said, her argument for leaving out Wozniacki is a good one.

Then I started to read the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website.  And every week they have a player from the WTA Tour blog from a certain location. I have to say that I loved the introduction to the blog of this week’s player.

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Indian Wells has been the stage for some of Daniela Hantuchova’s most glorious moments, so is there really anywhere better for the Slovak No.1 to do the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Blog from?

It’s true. I remember vividly when Hantuchova beat Hingis back then.  And I remember the second time that she won the tournament too. Hantuchova is a master on the courts of Indian Wells and always a force to be reckoned with. You never know.  Life’s full of surprises, so is tennis.

After that I started to read the Twitters of Elena Dementieva and Victoria Azarenka, just to see what they were up to and if they had any expectations.

Victoria “Vika” Azarenka prepared herself for the tournament hitting some balls with Gisela Dulko and afterwards she told that Kim Clijsters entered the courts.  Then there was something funny on Vika’s Twitter account.

Somebody asked her what she would like to have as an extraordinary talent.

Her answer:

my personal answer is i want to be able to read people minds! it think its kinda cool! well thanks again..i hope u enjoyed it as well

To read more about Victoria Azarenka, sign up for Twitter and start following her  @vika7 . She’s often very funny and takes time out for her fans.

Elena Dementieva’s Twitter was less interesting. It’s less personal but she did leave a link to an audiocast with an interview of her at Indian Wells. You can find it by clicking here: http://www.bnpparibasopen.org/News/Interviews-Audio/Interviews-Audio.aspx More interviews are available including but not limited to: Caroline Wozniacki (who has surprisingly not Twittered about Indian Wells at all) and Sam Stosur.

Then I decided to hop over to a very decent site that I have visited quite a lot in the past two weeks. It’s WTA  Women’s Tennis who have  comprehensive coverage with great videos and photos of the Indian Wells tournament. Like the photos of Jelena Jankovic training. If she doesn’t win the tournament then she at least should win the “The most beautiful smile” award. Because that’s what she has.