TENNIS in DEPTH.

Jelena Dokic, the No.1 seed in the qualies, rallied from 63 30 down to beat American Christina McHale, 36 76(3) 62. Dokic is coming off her first WTA title in almost nine years, winning Kuala Lumpur a few weeks ago. The Australian’s best results here were quarterfinal showings in 2001 (losing to Venus Williams) and 2003 (losing to Kim Clijsters). In the most interesting match of today, Dokic will be tested against Dinara Safina who entered this tournament as a wildcard.

Melanie Oudin, beat Germany’s Julia Goerges, 75 63. Oudin let a 5-2 lead slip away early in the match but wound up closing the first set out anyway, 7-5, then held off the German to put it away in straight sets on Grandstand court, 75 63. ”Julia was missing a lot of balls at the beginning and I was just getting balls back; she started playing better and I got a little tight,” Oudin said of the first set. “It was up and down a lot. She’d make errors then hit winners. I was pretty steady most of the match – I think we both could have played better.” Oudin will next take on No.29 seed Daniela Hantuchova, against whom she is 0-2 lifetime (although she won the first set in both of those meetings).

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Nadal and Djokovic to lead tennis players in an exhibition soccer match against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will lead some tennis players in an exhibition soccer match against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers to raise money for the Tsumani victims in Japan.

Djokovic and Nadal will be joined so far by Kei Nishikori, Andy Murray, Fernando Verdasco, Richard Gasquet,Feliciano Lopez, Viktor Troicki, Marcos Baghdatis, David Ferrer, Jurgen Melzer. “I am very concerned for the people of Japan and think it is only right that we do whatever we can to help those in need,” Djokovic said. “I would love to see all of Miami support both events by showing up Wednesday, March 23rd at the Ransom Everglades High School soccer field at 7:00 pm to cheer on your favorite team and attending the dinner afterward.” The match against the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers will take place at Ransom Everglades High School (3575 Main Highway), a couple miles south of the tournament in Coconut Grove at 7:00 pm. A dinner and auction will follow the soccer match.

Athletic Director at Ransom Everglades, Claude Grubair said, “Ransom Everglades is committed to community service in all respects. The fact that we can collaborate with such a caring group of people for such an important cause allows us to live the mission of our school.”

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Novak Djokovic is riding high, as well he should, after defeating Nadal and Federer on consecutive days at the poorly scheduled Indian Wells tournament. For Nole it was like playing back to back finals, and added to the drama he had to fight his allergies. It was obvious when he stepped on court on Sunday, to face Rafa, that something other than his opponent was bothering him. He has a long history of suffering from allergies, and on Sunday they were taking his focus away from the match. His eyes were watering, and he was having trouble breathing, plus there was someone across the net who was intent in pulverising him. The first set was a cakewalk for Nadal, and Nole’s body language clearly reflected the frustration he was enduring. It’s tough to play at any level, let alone the highest, when you can’t breathe.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, I suspect in the break after the first set, but Nole swallowed some anti-allergy medication. It kicked in after a few games. The result was obvious. He could now breathe, and as they say in the movies, the rest was history.

Will we see him in Miami? I doubt it!

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Novak Djokovic proved he is a real threat for the world number one spot with victory over Rafael Nadal in the BNP Paribas Open final in Indian Wells. The Serbian, who guaranteed the number two ranking by defeating Roger Federer in the semis, beat Nadal 4-6 6-3 6-2 in two hours and 25 minutes. Djokovic, who won the Australian Open in January, remains unbeaten in 2011 following his 18th victory of the year. He will move up to second in the rankings – behind Nadal – on Monday. And after defeating the Spaniard in a final for the first time in six attempts, he will surely have his sights set on overhauling him for top spot soon. Sunday’s final was a pulsating encounter from the outset, with the feeling of a Grand Slam clash, and both men were keen to stamp their authority as early as possible. Nadal had the first chance at 2-2, 0-40, but four break points went begging as he appeared to get edgy at the key moments, before he finally converted his fifth oppportunity. Djokovic, bristling with intent, hit back straight away with a spectacular backhand cross-court winner and a forehand up the line to make it 3-3, only to then slip behind again with the first really loose game of the day. Nadal was able to keep Djokovic at bay as he served out the set and it was now a question of whether the Serbian, who had not suffered a defeat since losing to Federer in London four months ago, had the energy to come back. The second set was a desperately tight and tense affair, with both men producing spectacular winners and plenty of errors under pressure too, but it was Djokovic who edged it with two breaks to Nadal’s one. The Spaniard’s serve let him down as he made just 25% of first serves and, despite hitting back immediately after slipping 4-2 behind, Djokovic made it three successive breaks and then levelled the match in a gripping ninth game.

History suggested that Nadal would be the stronger in the closing stages but he began the decider with a poor game, finding the net with a smash and hooking a forehand wide to drop serve again. If Nadal was wilting, Djokovic was getting stronger by the minute, and he swept into the net to angle away a confident forehand volley for 2-0 before the pressure told once again on Nadal’s serve and he was broken for a fourth time in succession. With Djokovic in this mood, a double break proved an impregnable lead, and he showed no sign of the nerves that once afflicted him at key moments as he saw out the match with another confident service game to love.

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Caroline Wozniacki claimed the title Sunday at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden with a 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 win over France’s Marion Bartoli. The 20-year-old Dane had impressed in her semi-final match against past champion Maria Sharapova two nights earlier, and carried that form into her second straight Indian Wells final, conceding just three points on serve to race through the opening set. Bartoli put up a fight, breaking Wozniacki twice in the second set to extend the match, but the top seed came back strong in the third as she opened up a double-break lead to go up 4-1. Though Bartoli recovered one break of serve and narrowed the lead to 4-3, Wozniacki won the final three games, clinching the title on her second match point when Bartoli’s return sailed long. Wozniacki, who has improved on each of her five visits to Indian Wells, is the eighth different women’s champion here in the last eight years and the 16th overall in tournament history. She has now won 14 tour-level titles, placing her fifth among active players on the WTA tour. Wozniacki also won the Dubai title last month.

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The first-time pairing of Alexandr Dolgopolov and Xavier Malisse completed their giant-killing run at the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Olympic gold medalists Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 6-7(5) 10-7 in the doubles final at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. Dolgopolov said about their unlikely road to the title, “We just said hi before this tournament, and we weren’t like really close. He just asked me, ‘Do you want to play?’ like 15 minutes to the deadline of the doubles because I wasn’t planning playing doubles here and here we are, winning the tournament. So it’s pretty amazing.”

Over the tournament fortnight, the Ukrainian-Belgian pairing ousted top seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, US Open doubles finalists Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, and three Top 10 singles players in Federer, Andy Murray (w/J. Murray) and Tomas Berdych (w/Tipsarevic). Their five wins all came in a Match Tie-break. “For sure we were doing that the whole tournament, so I wasn’t really nervous in the final,” Dolgopolov said of playing the Match Tie-break. “We had a lot of luck throughout the tournament. You don’t want to lose it because you’re nervous or something. You get lucky, you win; if not, you lose. We just went for it and got a bit of luck as well in the final.”

It was the first title for the 22-year-old Dolgopolov and the fifth doubles title for the 30-year-old Malisse, whose biggest win came seven years ago at Roland Garros with Olivier Rochus. “I think we just go out there and have fun,” said Malisse of their success. “That’s the main reason. That’s what we said in the beginning. And we return really well, so we make the other guys play all the time. At the net we can manage, and I think we serve well. Those are the things that you need in doubles, I guess. Especially the return, which is every time second serve we make them play and it makes a big difference.”

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Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer in three sets to take the world number two ranking and set up an Indian Wells final against Rafael Nadal. The 23-year-old Serbian will replace 16-time Grand Slam champion Federer in the rankings after a 6-3 3-6 6-2 win in the BNP Paribas Open semi-finals. Djokovic took his 2011 record to 17-0 and next faces Nadal, after the Spaniard beat Juan Martin del Potro. Top seed Nadal recovered from a slow start to defeat the Argentine 6-4 6-4. It was the first time the pair had met since the 2009 US Open semi-final, which Del Potro won before going on to take his first Grand Slam title. A wrist injury then meant he missed nearly all of 2010, but he has looked back to something approaching his best in recent weeks. He was given a helping hand at the start of Saturday’s first semi-final as Nadal made a sluggish start, missing a break point chance in the opening game before dropping serve himself moments later. The world number one was in trouble at 4-1 down but gathered himself impressively to reel off five straight games as he took the set, with his forehand doing much of the damage. A single break at 2-2 in the second was enough as Nadal saw out the victory to end a three-match losing streak against Del Potro and close in on a third Indian Wells title.

Djokovic has been the man to beat this year and has had the better of Federer in recent encounters, including victories in the US and Australian Open semi-finals and the Dubai final. The pattern continued in the California desert as Djokovic’s movement and relentless pressure from the baseline had Federer repeatedly misfiring, with a forehand into the net giving up the first break at 2-2. The Serbian scrambled brilliantly to recover from 15-40 in the following game and closed out the set after 44 minutes, with one spectacular winner at the net prompting a huge fist pump. Federer needed to find some inspiration of his own and it came with a rasping forehand winner down the line, accompanied by a bellow of “Come on!”, as he broke in game three of the second set, and the Swiss broke again to take the set and force a third. A scintillating match took further twists and turns in the decider as both men were now regularly producing moments of magic, with Federer dropping serve at the start, roaring back with a break to love for 2-2, and then double-faulting to fall behind again at 3-2. But it was Djokovic who grabbed the initiative, a run of 11 straight points earning him three chances for the double break before a thumping forehand converted the third of those. Djokovic held his nerve as he saw off another break point to serve out the victory and set up a final between what the rankings will say are now the best two players in the world.

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Caroline Wozniacki destroyed Maria Sharapova to reach the final of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, where she will face Marion Bartoli. The Danish world number one broke her error-prone Russian opponent three times in each set triumph 6-1 6-2.

“I Definitely didn’t expect such a score, but I’m very pleased about the way I played and the way I got my tactics to work,” said Wozniacki after reaching her third consecutive WTA final of the year. ”It was very important for me to play good defence today, because Maria is hitting the ball hard. It was important to keep depth to my shots and make her move.” Sharapova, champion at Indian Wells in 2006 but playing her first tournament in five weeks after suffering a viral infection, was frustrated after a “really flat” performance.

“I just didn’t have a spark,” stated the 23-year-old Russian, who served up eight double faults. ”She played solid. I didn’t take care of the short balls when I had the chance and let her get back in the points. There was not a lot of energy from my side.”

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