Del Potro Opens Play Thursday At Indian Wells, Robson Returns; Fritz v Tiafoe

by Staff | March 10th, 2016, 12:24 am
  • 23 Comments

Tired of the Maria Sharapova doping scandal? Of course you are! Rejoice, Indian Wells starts in full Thursday as the men open up first round play.

Among those in action will be former US Open champion and Indian Wells finalist Juan Martin del Potro who resumes his comeback against American qualifier Tim Smyczek.

The last time del Potro played Indian Wells he reached the finals in 2013 losing to Rafael Nadal in three sets. He also made the semis in 2013 and the quarterfinals on two other occasions.


Another former Top 10er Nicolas Almagro will also be on court. But the story Thursday in the daytime will be the many youngsters around the grounds highlighted by the clash between 18-year-old friends Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe.

“We’re both going after each other. He’s pretty hot right now. I think it’s a really good match and I think we’re going to go after it,” said Tiafoe.

“We practice together almost every day. We know each other’s game pretty well, so there’s no secrets out there,” Tiafoe added. “Hopefully we get to play each other for the next 15 years.”

Hyeon Chung, Borna Coric, Kyle Edmund will also play first round matches.

The women fired up their event today with Vania King, Heather Watson, CoCo Vandeweghe and Dominika Cibulkova winners.

Tomorrow, the women will be led by Christina Mchale who faces Caroline Garcia. And Laura Robson returns to play her first WTA-level event since the US Open. The 22-year-old Brit hasn’t won a main draw WTA match in almost two and a half years since 2013 Beijing. She takes on Magdalena Rybarikova.

THURSDAY INDIAN WELLS SCHEDULE
STADIUM 1 start 11:00 am
ATP – B. Coric (CRO) vs L. Pouille (FRA)
WTA – C. Garcia (FRA) vs C. Mchale (USA)
ATP – [WC] F. Tiafoe (USA) vs [WC] T. Fritz (USA)
Not Before 8:30 pm
ATP – Qualifier vs [WC] J. Del Potro (ARG)

STADIUM 2 start 11:00 am
ATP – N. Almagro (ESP) vs I. Cervantes (ESP)
ATP – K. Edmund (GBR) vs G. Pella (ARG)
WTA – B. Mattek-Sands (USA) vs A. Beck (GER)
WTA – [WC] A. Kerber (GER) / A. Petkovic (GER) vs [2] H. Chan (TPE) / Y. Chan (TPE)
ATP – H. Chung (KOR) vs A. Ramos-Vinolas (ESP)


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23 Comments for Del Potro Opens Play Thursday At Indian Wells, Robson Returns; Fritz v Tiafoe

Green Lady Says:

Too much Sharapova talk,life goes on,and time to get back to tennis,and with Roger missing its great to have Delpo back on board,hopefully he will go deep here,dont expect him to be winning titles this early in his comeback,but getting matches under his belt is whats important ATM,welcome back Delpo ;).


madmax Says:

Delpo!

Yay!

True enough. Good to talk about tennis. Hope that Delpo is able to go deep into the tournament.


jalep Says:

Hey, Van Persie, wherever you are – the other (sort of) WTA thread got buried somewhere. I’ll go with this one. My favorite matches 3/10:

Julia Goerges over Camila Giorgi. Camila is ALWAYS fun to watch win or lose – she hasn’t been good. I like Julia to win.

Nao Hibino over Lauren Davis. Battle of young guns. Nao Hibino is just better I think.

Caroline Garcia v Christina McHale. Caroline should win but McHale is popular in IW – I’ve been at one of her matches there.

Donna Vekic over Tsvetana Pironkova. Stan’s GF made it through qualifying! Pironkova hasn’t done much in 2016.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands over Annika Beck. I don’t know. Doesn’t Annika have an injury? BMS a crowd fave.

Daria Kasatkina over veteran, Daniella Hantuchova

Monica Puig v Marjana Lucic-Baroni. Baroni is good and probably wins, but I just love Monica Puig!

Eugenie Bouchard over Risa Ozaki

And it gets a lot better tomorrow…


jalep Says:

Fritz over Tiafoe in 2 or Tiafoe over Fritz in 3.
I hope TC shows it; they should. Fun.

Delpo will play Tim Smyczek (qualifier)
Love Tim Smyczek, but hope Delpo is fit enough to get the win in 2 sets for his chances to go deep.


Van Persie Says:

Jalep, thank you very much.
I am to tired to name my picks now, so I trust you on this ;)


jalep Says:

Well, it’s not a very star-studded WTA or ATP list today. They must be planning to pile on the headline names starting tomorrow and over the weekend. I’ll admit I thought they’d have a couple bigger seeds on today.

Get some rest, VP.


jalep Says:

Borna Coric game, set, match, 62 75 over Lucas Pouille. Borna’s strong and confident; appears his DC efforts won’t slow him down.

Borna should be able to get another win next round over Bellucci


RZ Says:

@Jalep – the big names typically play on Saturday and Sunday, as the seeds have byes.

I’m heading out there for the matches tomorrow through Sunday. I’m hoping to catch some pics of Amelie working with Andy on the practice court.


jalep Says:

Oh, lucky you. I wish I was going too, RZ!
Have a great time and gets lot’s of pictures 👍

http://www.bnpparibasopen.com/en/schedules/order-of-play/?wd=03-11-2016

Was just looking at the Friday schedule. The Aga v Cibby match should be good! Aga’s having a great 2016 and Cibulkova’s starting to play well.


jalep Says:

Sascha Zverev v Dodig 11:00 am, Stadium 1.

Murray and Fleming v Isner and Raonic is the 2nd match of the day on Stadium 2. Hope you will be there!

But I see stadium 6 is where it’s at for doubles, RZ. Check it out. Santina…

I remember staying late watching Gilles Simon practice one night — and stayed until closing time another night watching Cilic lose a practice match to Dolgopolov – that was 2011. It was a good match!


Green Lady Says:

Thanks for the info Jalep ;)….


RZ Says:

Thanks for the tips Jalep. I may need to start off at Stadium 2 and then switch to 6. I don’t have tix for Stadium 1 at night (and don’t like the nosebleed factor anyway).


AndyMira Says:

Oh no,fritz lose to Tiafoe..has been looking forward to see him spread his wing here..


Wog Boy Says:

Fritz..new Sampras..??:))


Dave Says:

I watched the second half of the Fritz match. I didn’t realize he was 0 and 3 against Tiafoe(don’t know if I spelled his name right)in juniors. They both played well and I was really surprised how good Tiafoe was. He has a lot of power. I would say the main thing that stood out, which Fritz doesn’t have a lot of control over, is that Tiafoe is physically developed already and Fritz really hasn’t filled out yet. You can see that playing a bit of a factor on this match. I think Taylor will get stronger and stronger with time and his body really does need to fill out a bit, but he’s 18 years old. Everyone fills out at different times, Fritz’s time isn’t yet. I still think he will crack the top 50 or better this year.


Dave Says:

Wog Boy,

In my opinion, Fritz will get to number 1 in the future. I know that’s a really difficult thing to predict, but that’s how I see it and I would be very surprised if he wasn’t number 1 at some point in his career. Wheather he will be as good as Sampras, that is a big ask for anyone.


AndyMira Says:

@Dave..agree with you at 7:43 pm,i think the great south american swing appearance did catch up a little with fritz..it’s not easy to maintain a high level of tennis week in and week out..like you said he’s 18 after all..need a little time to develope his mental strength and physical..and i think there’s a lot more to come from him this year..


Dave Says:

I really like Fritz’s game. He made some bad decisions today during rallies. He would be ahead during the rally and hit a really hard groundstroke into one of the corners and not expect Tiafoe to get it back and when he did, because of his foot speed, Fritz couldn’t finish some of those points and ended up losing them. He will learn to be more consistent with his groundstrokes, while maintaining the power he needs to win the point.


Wog Boy Says:

Dave,

I was teasing TX staff since they declared Fritz future Sampras. I am yet to see him playing so cannot comment on his game.


AndyMira Says:

What a defence from harrison in 2nd set TB..he’s awesome..made a couple of stunning winners..he really deserved a win against Dusan..


Margot Says:

@RZ
Have a great time! IW is a tournie I’d love to get to one of these days. Speaking from rain-drenched freezing UK, how lovely it would be to stroll in the warm sun, apart from anything else.
And, if you see Andy, don’t forget to give him a big hug from me!


jane Says:

have fun RZ! give us your live reports please. :)
like margot, i’d love to go to IW someday. it’s fairly close, but it always falls at a busy time for me, unfortunately. :/


Van Persie Says:

Congrats to Delpo for a speedy win. He will face Tomas Berdych in the next round. That will be his test.

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