Week 6 - first half - End of Tennis and Indian Wells. Sigh.

    We had two more nights of tennis with great weather and great tennis.  We also found a wonderful Mexican super market, Cardenas and have been buying their homemade flour tortillas and various sauces and making some nice lunches.
   On Thursday afternoon, we went to the tennis garden a bit early and sat on the lawn in front of the big screen and watched Rafa Nadal and Mark Garcia-Lopez versus the Polish team of Krystenbert and Matkowski (who we saw beat Monfils/Kohlshreiber earlier in the tournament).  Even though it was a day match, they let people in to see the match from the grandstand, so we went up to see the end of that match which was fun.  Nadal and Garcia-Lopez beat the other team very easily: 6-2, 6-0.  Nadal and Lopez are now going to be in the men's finals AND Rafa will be in the Men's Singles Final, which will be interesting to schedule, not to mention the physical challenge.
  After seeing Nadal and Lopez, we went back to our "own" seats.  We saw a very intense Quarterfinal match between the young, tall American, John Isner (seeded 11) versus the 13 seed Frenchman Gilles Simon.  It went the distance - 3 sets, with Isner squeaking out a win in the third.  Isner went on to meet Novak Djokovic on the weekend and amazingly, took out Number 1 Djokovic in three tight sets.  So, it looks as if Isner will break into the top ten.
   Between the matches, Michael Lington, saxophonist, treated the stadium to some wonderful music.
   We next saw a very interesting women's Semi-Final Doubles match between last year's winner at Indian Wells (Vesnina/Mirza) take on the winner from Roland Garros (Hrdecka/Hlavachkova).  The first set went to the Czech team and it looked as if they were on their way to victory in the second set, when Vesnina and Mirza stepped it up and won.  It was long and exciting. By the end, though, there were only about 200 people left as most of them cleared out of the men's singles.  (There is not much interest in women's doubles without more highly recognizable names.) It turned out to be our latest night of the tournament; we got home around 1 a.m.!
   On Friday, we saw both Women's Single Semi-Finals.
   First, we saw the number one women's player right now - Victoria Azarenka, take on the woman who took out Li Na - Angelique Kerber of Germany.  Kerber played well and challenged Azarenka, but Azarenka was just too good and eventually won: 6-4, 6-3.  So, Azarenka went into the Finals.
  Next we saw a much anticipated match between two former number one players who are battling their way back to the top:  Maria Sharapova, seeded 2, and Ana Ivanovic, seeded 15.  We saw Ivanovic in two tough matches earlier in the tournament.  We saw her in a long three-setter against Pervac and then, saw her take out Caroline Wozniacki.  And, we saw Sharapova take out Gisela Dulko easily.  It was hard to know for whom to root as we like them both.
  The first set took over an hour and was worthy of the finals with high quality play and drama.  Unfortunately, though, early in the second set, Ivanovic retired, injured.  Sharapova moved into the Finals.
   On Saturday, we had tennis withdrawal symptoms!  And, the weather also changed  - rain in the desert!  We watched Djokovic lose to Isner on TV and then watched through a rain delay the Federer - Nadal Semi Finals.