Safin said his appearance on the champion’s circuit so soon after leaving the main tour was “almost comical.” Perhaps even more startling is the fact that he lost in the first round of the eight-man Rio event Friday night to Wayne Ferreira.

The loss shows two things – Safin has probably played very little tennis since November when he played his final ATP event at the Paris Indoors and the guys on the Champions Series circuit can really still play. Safin just turned 30 years old while his conqueror, Ferreira, is eight years older, but showed he is still in great shape and playing fine tennis. There is prize money on the line in each match on the Champions Series and Ferreria earned him at least another extra $10,000 for his win. Ferreira went on to finish third in the event and pocketed $25,000.

Fernando Meligeni of Brazil was the surprise tournament winner, boosted by the local fan support. He defeated Mark Philippoussis in the championship match to win his first Champions Series title and $60,000.

Here are some photos of the event provided by tournament organizers.

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Maria Sharapova was made to fight the hard fight having to take the match against Vera Dushevina to three sets at Indian Wells.  She won 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.

She must have felt the love from the crowd and especially from boyfriend and LA Lakers star Sasha Vujacic who watched her practice at the impressive BNP Paribas tournament.

Pete Sampras

Pete Sampras was fighting an entirely different fight. Well not a real fight but he gave his views on celebrities who jam political views into people’s throats. And he is right. When I watch SNL or listen to U2 then that’s all I do. I don’t need them to form an opinion on politics at all.  Ofcourse he shouldn’t have pumped his fist yelling “Go McCain” whilst saying such things.

Watch the video:

For Maria Sharapova pics, you can just right about here:

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FoxNews.com wonders where the young women contenders are. We got Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin,  Serena & Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova. But where are the likes of Caroline Wozniacki, Yanina Wickmayer or Victoria Azarenka?  Fox Sports goes into details. Read all about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2010/03/11/young-womens-contenders/

Greg Couch is attending Indian Wells and blogs. One of his blogs is an interesting read.  It deals with America’s tennis sweetheart  Melanie “Miracle Melanie” Oudin. She got ousted in the first round of the Indian Wells tournament losing to Roberta Vinci, 3-6, 6-3, 6-0. But that’s not the worst part according to Greg.  Mel’s playing as if she no self confidence at all and it’s a not a fun sight.  http://tennis.fanhouse.com/2010/03/12/miracle-melanies-missing-confidence/

TheSportReview.com wonders about the, according to them, sad state of the WTA Tour. Will the WTA Tour be able to bounce back after a bad year filled with bad headlines? TheSportReview.com thinks they can. http://www.thesportreview.com/tsr/2010/03/is-womens-tennis-finally-about-to-bounce-back/

TMZ.com has a cute photo of lovebirds Maria Sharapova and boyfriend and Lakers star Sasha Vujacic.

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.

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The Oscars are also a time where big stars organize huge events to create awareness for a particular topic.  Elton John is one of the people who sought to create awareness for AIDS  at the 18th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Viewing Party.

Big names attended naturally, among those are Serena Williams and Miley Cyrus.

We managed to obtain photos of Serena Williams and Miley arriving at the party in West Hollywood.

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Hingis moved in with Andreas last summer in Hurden.

Hingis was the number of the WTA tour for 209 weeks in a row. Has won a record of 43 titles which includes five Grand Slam titles.

Hingis was forced to retire due to injury in 2002 and made a succesful comeback in 2006.  Her succes didn’t last long as she was banned for two years after a doping test found traces of cocaine in her blood.

Martina Hingis and fiancee Andreas Bieri

Nowadays Hingis models for Elite,  a leading modeling agency who also have the likes of Gisele Bundchen under contract amongst other stars.

Hingis still has loyal support of her fans who are all in full support of her upcoming marriage.

A fan, who goes by the name of Lois, showed her support by saying the following:

Congratulations! This is the news I’ve been waiting to hear since they decided to live together. I’m sure Martina will still be “busy” with other things but at 29 it’s time for her to marry and hopefully start a family. Certainly Federer has embraced marriage and fatherhood with great “gusto” so the ultimate goal would be for Martina to be a mother someday, she has said herself many times she would welcome children into her life so now she will have a chance for fulfillment and contentment. Best Wishes to the happy couple! – By Lois

Let’s hope that Hingis and her Andreas will live happily ever after.

Sister Serena was unable to attend the BJK cup due to a leg injury, missing the opportunity to avenge the loss of last year’s controversial match at the US Open.

“On the way here, I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to see Serena in New York,”’ Venus said. “We talked today, but we didn’t talk about tennis at all.”

Kim Clijsters was given a tough time in front of a Venus-friendly crowd of 11,702 and struggled especially in the beginning.

“In the beginning it took some time to find an aggressive game,” Clijsters said. “If you’re not feeling the ball 100 percent, it’s very hard. I kind of just had to look for my game a little bit, really look for my position on court. I got better as my match went on.”

Among the 11,702 people who attended in Madison Square Garden, New York,  were David Duchovny, Star Jones and Herb Wilson and Nancy Kerrigan.

Star Jones and Herb Wilson

Nancy Kerrigan

David Duchovny

Decker was excited by her upcoming role judging by her tweet on Twitter:

“That’s why I’m in L.A. now and so excited to get started! The cast has been AMAZING and welcoming. I can’t stop gushing about everyone involved!”

Filming starts this March. Decker previously acted on Ugly Betty.

X mark your spot – I wouldn’t dare to mark anyone’s X but Fernando Verdasco does.  Verdasco is part of a new Calvin Klein marketing campaign called “X mark your spot”.  Click to see what it’s all about: http://xmarkyourspot.com/

It happened in Monterrey – Stars, guitars, lips red as wine….well not really but Jelena Jankovic did celebrate her 25th birthday on February 28  in Monterrey, Mexico. With a birthday cake at a post match  press conference . And I got the pics to prove it.

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And to further backup my statement I got the pics to show for it! I am sure you all will agree. If not then I am forced to use my Jedi Mindtrick on you!!

The gallery features Victoria Azarenka, Anna Chakvetadze, Alona Bondarenko and Dominika Cibulkova! Yup, life just doesn’t come better than that. The scans were made from Smash Magazine 2009.

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I wonder why she isn’t in the issue of Sports Illustrated. She would have made a wonderful addition. That’s actually an understatement.  Anyway enjoy the photos of Iveta Benesova.

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