CRAZY DAY IN INDIAN WELLS TENNIS 2016 @ THE BNP PARIBAS OPEN MARRED BY SHOCKING MISSES & EPIC CHOKES BY RICKY DIMON

Written by: Staff on 17th March 2016

CRAZY DAY IN INDIAN WELLS TENNIS 2016 @ THE BNP PARIBAS OPEN MARRED BY SHOCKING MISSES & EPIC CHOKES BY RICKY DIMON |

Photo by Francisco Resendiz

What. Was. That?

Wednesday at the BNP Paribas Open was will not soon be forgotten–but not necessarily in a good way. Plenty of fans, of course, went home happy; Novak Djokovic fans, Rafael Nadal fans, Kei Nishikori fans, pretty much anyone who is French…. But Djokovic, Nadal, Nishikori, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Gael Monfils hardly ruled the day.

No, it was the losers who stole the show.

It all started with a roller-coaster of match on Stadium 2 between Stan Wawrinka and David Goffin. The underdog surged to a considerable lead against an out-of-sorts Wawrinka before enduring multiple meltdowns. He squandered all of a set and 4-0 lead in the second and also failed to serve out the match at 5-3 in the second and 5-4 in the third. But Wawrinka saved the most egregious error for last. At 5-5 in a final-set tiebreaker, the fourth-ranked Swiss botched an easy overhead right on top of the net. That gave Goffin a match point on his own serve and the Belgian converted it for a 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(5) victory.

“(It) was a match without (a) brain,” Wawrinka assessed.

Tomas Berdych and Milos Raonic took the same court immediately thereafter and Berdych arguably even surpassed Wawrinka in brain cramping. No matter that the Czech served at a mere 58 percent and struck only two aces compared to four double-faults; he still had a chance to force a deciding set. Instead, Berdych sealed his fate in the worst of ways. Serving down match point at 7-8 in the second-set tiebreaker, the world No. 7 blasted an easy overhead well wide to hand Raonic a 6-4, 7-6(7) win.

“I didn’t expect him to miss it by any means,” the Canadian commented. “I didn’t think I would have a chance in that point.”

Nadal still has a chance in Indian Wells–and for that he better send Alexander Zverev a Christmas card at the end of this year. Zverev donated 11 double-faults, won a horrendous 35 percent of his second-serve points, and saved only three of 10 break points during their fourth-round showdown in Stadium 1.

Alexander Zverev. Photo by Francisco Resendiz.

But none of those aforementioned shortcomings will be remembered. They were overshadowed by the 18-year-old German’s hard-to-believe gaffe with the biggest victory of his career on his racket. With match point serving at 5-3, 40-30 in the third set, Zverev got a look at an easy forehand volley. But he was clearly besieged by nerves, got his feet stuck, and dumped the shot in the middle of the net. Zverev proceeded to win only one of the next 15 points as Nadal survived 6-7(8), 6-1, 7-5.

“On match point I sucked, so that was it,” Zverev lamented.

But at least he didn’t “suck” seven times in a row on match point. The nightcap on Stadium 2 featured a doubles clash between the Bryan Brothers and the French-Serb duo of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Nenad Zimonjic. After splitting sets, Bob and Mike Bryan seized a 9-2 lead in the super-tiebreaker. Yes, that means they had not one, not two, not three…not six, but seven match points. They blew all seven and eventually missed later missed an eighth opportunity before Roger-Vasselin and Zimonjic improbably prevailed 4-6, 6-1, 14-12.

It was an appropriate end to an absolutely bizarre day of tennis in the desert. For Wawrinka, Berdych, Zverev, and the Bryans, Miami cannot come soon enough.