Victoria Azarenka’s miserable year continued as she laboured to a 6-0 7-6 loss to Lauren Davis in Indian Wells.  Her foot injury, which she described as inflammation and nerve damage in between the bones of her foot, doesn’t sound promising and she is now a major doubt for Miami.  Predictions-wise, Friday was a pretty ropey day and it is now making me think about the upsets I have predicted for Day 4! I was really impressed with Bouchard on Friday, who had struggled for form since the Australian Open.  She served well, was aggressive and kept her concentration impeccably against a streaky, Peng.  She has so much pressure and expectation surrounding her right now, but after today’s performance, I feel she is dealing with it all remarkably well.

Both polls on Moo’s Tennis Blog for who you thought would win Indian Wells were very close; for the women’s draw, Halep came out on top with 22% of votes, closely followed by Sharapova, Azarenka and Radwanska.  For the men’s, Federer(!) was top with 31% of votes closely followed by Djokovic and Nadal.  Also, a shout-out to Elena Baltacha who revealed yesterday that she was batting liver cancer.  This really is sucky news, but I am wishing Elena all the very best for a quick and speedy recovery.  I always admired her fight and determination on the tennis court and she did remarkably well to achieve so much in her tennis career with a considerable amount of health issues.  Keep battling, Elena!

1. Francesca Schiavone v Sam Stosur (WTA IW, R2)

Francesca Schiavone

As I scoured through the women’s matches for day 4, I was immediately surprised to see this one pop up.  Perhaps that is because I wrongly gave Schiavone little chance at getting past Mona Barthel in the first round.  After going 0-7 in singles matches this year, Schiavone came from a set down to defeat Barthel, 3-6 6-2 6-2.  This was a bad result for Mona, who was defending last 16 points from last year.  For Francesca though, this was a confidence boosting win, which sets up a second rounder with Sam Stosur.  The Aussie player did reasonably well down under compared to previous years; however she hasn’t done anything of note in the last month, winning just one match through Doha and Dubai.  They have rather neatly split their last six matches with neither player winning consecutive matches since Stosur did it back in 2009.  Schiavone has definitely got a shot in this one, but Stosur should just about pull through.

Prediction: Stosur d. Schiavone in 3 sets

2. Stanislas Wawrinka v Ivo Karlovic (ATP IW, R2)

I am fascinated by Stanislas Wawrinka‘s comeback to the tour.  This will be his first ATP match since being crowned as the Australian Open champion in January and it is a little puzzling to me that he hasn’t made it back on the tour since then.  I haven’t heard of any reports of injuries although I may be misinformed on that subject.  Wawrinka’s first match will be a testing one against Ivo Karlovic.  The 6 foot 11 giant, Karlovic, had a great run through February, making the final of Memphis and quarter-finals of Acapulco.  In his first match at Indian Wells, he comfortably defeated Alex Bogomolov Jr, 6-4 6-4, earning two breaks of serve in each set.  Wawrinka and Karlovic last played at the 2013 US Open where Stan won in 3 tight sets.  A best of three set match will be interesting and with Wawrinka untried and untested apart from a doubles win with Federer yesterday, I am going for Ivo to come through.

Prediction: Karlovic d. Wawrinka in 2 tight sets

WTA Indian Wells 2nd Round Predictions

Li Na d. Zheng Jie in 2 sets

Klara Zakopalova d. Karolina Pliskova in 3 sets

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova d. Caroline Garcia in 3 sets *starting to think Garcia may have a shot in this one*

Sabine Lisicki d. Aleksandra Wozniak in 2 tight sets

Dominika Cibulkova d. Donna Vekic in 2 sets

Ekaterina Makarova d. Monica Niculescu in 3 sets

Barbora Zahlavova Strycova d. Svetlana Kuznetsova in 3 sets

Petra Kvitova d. Coco Vandeweghe in 2 sets

Maria Sharapova d. Julia Goerges in 2 sets (1 tight, 1 easy)

Camilla Giorgi d Sorana Cirstea in 3 sets *could be amazing haha*

Flavia Pennetta d. Taylor Townsend in 2 sets

Ana Ivanovic d. Elina Svitolina in 2 sets

AjlaTomljanovic d. Sloane Stephens in 2 tight sets

Garbine Muguruza d. Alisa Kleybanova in 2 sets

Angelique Kerber d. Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor in 2 sets

ATP Indian Wells 2nd Round Predictions

Rafael Nadal d. Radek Stepanek in 2 sets

Alexandr Dolgopolov d. Tim Smyczek in 3 sets

Gael Monfils d. Sergiy Stakhovsky in 2 tight sets

Fabio Fognini d. Ryan Harrison in 2 sets

Edouard Roger-Vasselin d. Milos Raonic in 3 sets *changed my mind*

Jerzy Janowicz d. Alejandro Falla in 2 sets

Pablo Andujar d. Jiri Vesely in 2 sets

Andy Murray d. Lukas Rosol in 2 sets (1 tight, 1 easy)

Andreas Seppi d. Sam Querrey in 3 sets

Kevin Anderson d. Lleyton Hewitt in 3 sets

Mikhail Youzhny d. Michael Russell in 2 sets

Jeremy Chardy d. Tommy Haas in 3 sets

Kei Nishikori d. Santiago Giraldo in 2 sets

Dmitry Tursunov d. Juan Monaco in 2 sets

Roger Federer d. Paul-Henri Mathieu in 2 sets