Preview: Indian Wells

City: Indian Wells, CA, USA
Surface: Outdoor Hard
Championship Points: 1000
2008 Singles Champion: Novak Djokovic
2008 Doubles Champions: Jonathan Erlich & Andy Ram

The top 32 players are scheduled to compete, except for Nicolas Almagro in this 128-person draw. This is the first tournament with the top players since the Australian Open. Everyone is looking forward to another possible Nadal-Federer final after their last meeting in the Australian Open.

The top four are favored, of course. Last year’s champion, Novak Djokovic will be on hand to defend his title. The Serbian has not played well this year but did manage to win his first title of the year in Dubai.

Roger Federer was out with a back injury for six weeks and will be back with a new coach, Darren Cahill. He has won this tournament three times in three consecutive years 2004, 2005, and 2006. It will be interesting to see if his new coach might help him with his Nadal problem.

Andy Murray started the year out well by winning two titles but lost to Fernando Verdasco in the round of 16 of the Australian Open. The Scotsman hit a roundblock in Dubai where he had to pull out because of a virus. This illness also prevented him from playing for the British Davis Cup team last week.

Rafael Nadal should be tough to beat. The Spaniard started out the year with an Australian Open win and managed to administer two serious beatdowns on the Serbian Davis Cup team last week. He also won the tournament in 2007.

Juan Martin Del Potro, Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are looking to get into the mix with the top four, but Del Potro and Simon are not starting off the year in the most convincing fashion. Tsonga is off to a good start with two titles and could give Murray some trouble in the quarterfinals. Marin Cilic and Radek Stepanek are also playing well this year, so they might also be in the hunt.

The standout of the year has been Fernando Verdasco who had an epic semifinal against Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open. The Spaniard had been training with Andre Agassi’s former trainer, Gil Reyes and began to play like a top five player. He went out with an ankle injury in February and has not played since the Australian Open. Let's hope he has fully recovered and picks up where he left off. I would not mind a Nadal-Verdasco final.

Hopefully, some other players step it up and shake up the tournament.

Tournament Draw
Singles / Doubles
(image: Getty Images)