Fish feat forms Federer-less final

Contrary to expectations that he will finally end his title drought of 2008 appropriately in an oasis in the desert, Roger Federer was defeated 6-3 6-2 in the semi-finals by Mardy Fish of the United States at the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells, California.

Fish is the first American that Federer has lost to since late in 2003. (Andy Roddick, who is 1-15 in his head-to-head with the Swiss, must be green with envy!)

The year's first Masters Series tournament started promisingly for the three-time champion with a straight-set victory in the second round over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, followed by an amazing 6-1 6-1 53-minute rout of Nicholas Mahut in the third round. By the time he mastered Ivan Ljubicic 6-3 6-4 in the fourth round, his winners punctuated with fist pumps and cries of "Com'n!", there was no doubt that the world number one was back to his best form. It was then that a clearly fired-up Federer got a surprise free ticket into the semifinals when Tommy Haas withdrew from their quarterfinal match due to a sinus infection. On hindsight, this might have cost Federer some much needed match practice.

After seeing the champion conjure magical shots in those previous matches, there was therefore something decidedly fishy about an out-of-sorts Federer in his third loss of the season. He was not as quick as usual and his game lacked its customary magic.

Could this be a sign that he is actually not yet fully recovered from mononucleosis? The disease is after all known to recur from time to time.

The unseeded Fish on the other hand displayed the kind of tennis that belied his number 89 ranking and, egged on by an eager home crowd, saw him previously swim past two-time champion Lleyton Hewitt and upset world numbers four and seven, Nicolay Davydenko and David Nalbancian, respectively.

Fish's opponent in the finals on Sunday is Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic who had upset world number two Rafael Nadal in the other semifinals. (Had Fish entered the tournament on a wildcard, that finals would have been an interesting wildcard vs. Djoker match-up. Haha.)

As for Federer, it remains to be seen if he will recover from this string of losses and finally triumph to raise a trophy this year.

In the meantime, we Federer fans will continue to thirst for such an event and have no choice but to wait patiently while our champion regroups for the rest of the season starting with upcoming Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida.
Photo credit: Harry How/Getty Images

Going for a fourth title at Indian Wells

Today Roger Federer begins another campaign for his first trophy of the year at the season's very first ATP Masters Series tournament at Indian Wells, California.

After battling mononucleosis and consequently failing to defend his titles at the Australian Open and the Dubai Tennis Championships, the current world number one hopes to extend his lead over world number two, Rafael Nadal, who is the defending champion at the Pacific Life Open.

The Spaniard is currently just 350 points behind the Swiss in the ATP rankings, thanks to making the finals at Chennai and a semifinal appearance in Melbourne. He also reached the quarterfinals in Dubai where Federer was upset in the first round by Andy Murray.

Last year at Indian Wells, Federer lost in the second round to a resurgent Guillermo Canas who had then just returned to the tour after serving a ban for testing positive for drugs.

With a bit of match practice under his belt (i.e., the recent exhibition match with Pete Sampras), Federer will certainly look forward to regain the title which previously he won for three straight years, from 2004 to 2006.

As a seeded player in the tournament, Federer has been given a bye in the first round and will play his first match in the second round against another Guillermo, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Although Garcia-Lopez is ranked 61 places below Federer, the windy conditions which posed a problem at Indian Wells yesterday may be more of a concern for Federer. Let's hope he'll be able to fight off both and go on to regain the title.
Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Federer finally exits Indian Wells

Federer and Allegro put up a good fight against Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett in the second round of the men's doubles at Indian Wells by winning the first set 6-3 before losing the second 2-6 and ultimately the match tiebreak 11-13. Happily, there was evidence that people were still drawn to watch the No.1 player:

His following, however, was not far behind. Federer became a big fish in a small pond as spectators packed the stadium and spilled out to open areas to get a closer look at the star in action.

Despite the loss, Federer still took time to visit with tournament's ball kids. Ever the generous gentleman, he even signed the Feder-bears they had purchased:

Federer, who was a ball kid at his hometown tournament in Basel, posed for pictures and collected the more than eighty Feder-bears to take back to his hotel room, promising the ball kids he would return all of them with his autograph.

Canas stuns Federer in Indian Wells

Eep. Federer just got beaten by Guillermo Canas. There goes the streak. Ah, well...
Apparently Federer had some trouble with his feet and called the trainer twice. But that didn't help as Federer went down 5-7 2-6 to Canas who is understandably jubilant about his victory over the No. 1 player. (After all, he got into the tournament, despite losing in the qualifiers, only when Xavier Malisse withdrew due to injury.) The loss has left Federer with a 41-game winning streak, just five short of Vilas' record. He also would have had a chance to break another record by winning an eighth consecutive title, just to mention a few of the records that Federer could have broken had he gone on to win the title.

But as always, Federer didn't seem to take the loss as hard as his fans did. Isn't this just a blip compared to what the great man has achieved so far? In fact Federer went on to play doubles with his friend Yves Allegro (and got a standing ovation when he walked onto the court) and won that match. His fans in Indian Wells must have been happy to get another chance to see him play despite his exit from the men's singles tournament.

Federer's win-loss record for the year now stands at 12-1.

Federer vs. Sampras II

Nope, this isn't going to be another essay on that (tiresome) debate on which of the two great tennis players is greater. Just news that Federer revealed that he got to practice with Sampras for two days(!) in the latter's Beverly Hills home in the lead-up to the Indian Wells Masters Series.

Well, I knew I was coming to L.A., so I'm kind of thinking, who's around in L.A.? So, I rang up Pete and said, "Any chance?" He was like, "Yeah, sure." I'm totally excited. So right away I had the idea, anyway seeing how good he plays because he was one of my favorite players, when I was growing up and beating him in his backyard in Wimbledon was so special to me. I wanted to try to -- I wanted to beat him in his house. So it was very enjoyable to actually hit with him. It would be kind of cool to maybe play an exhibition against him. We'll see. But he was playing very well.