Last day of tennis for us, St. Patrick's Day

    We had a quiet day until we went out for tennis in the afternoon, although we did walk around the downtown of Palm Springs a bit.  Mark made a corned beef in honor of St. Patrick's Day, but we didn't eat it as we didn't want a big lunch and then were were at Indian Wells at night.
      We got to Indian Wells around 5:00 as we thought that, with the gates open for the night ticket at 4:30, that we'd be able to get into the 5 o'clock match between Victoria Azarenka and Magdalena Rybarikova, but....it turns out that that was still considered part of the day ticket. We complained but....to no avail.
       So we sat in lounge chairs on the grounds and watched the match on the big screen which was also very pleasant as the night was balmy. Although we were prepared with warm clothes, we didn't need them at all even though we got home past 11 o'clock.
       Azarenka took the quarterfinal match 6-0, 6-0. Evidently Rybarikova was injured or something. She was so good when we saw her take out Bencic. This match took just over an hour.
        Then we went into Stadium 1. We saw a men's quarterfinal match between Canadian Milos Raonic (#11 seed) and Gael Monfils (#12 seed). The first set went to a tie break, won by Raonic. The second set was 6-3, Raonic. Monfils had some brilliant moments, but Raonic had the better game, especially serving. But there were some incredible points from both players and the match took about an hour and a half. The shots are blurry because of the lighting.

Raonic serving

Monfils

       We were in Section 141, Row V, pretty good seats. And, we were in an area with a lot of Canadians who were rooting for Raonic. Hockey star, Wayne Gretzke (The Great One) was in the stands with his family which was cool. Also in the "royalty" box were Greg Norman, Tommy Haas, Conchita Martinez, Rod Laver and...even Novak Djokovic for a little while. Quite amazingly, he left through the audience and gave a few autographs and posed for photos.
        The next match was a quarterfinal for men's doubles. It was between Frenchman E Roger-Vasselin and veteran doubles player, 39 year old Serbian Nenad Zimonic. (Zimonic and R-Vasselin took out the Bryans yesterday in a tie break when the Bryans had been up 8-2!) However, they were taken out tonight by P. Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, two Frenchmen. This also went to a tie break and took an hour and a quarter. While many fans left after the Raonic-Monfils match, enough stayed to make it a lot of fun. Mark and I moved down very close to the court for the doubles which finished after 10.

Zimonic and Roger-Vasselin

Mahut and Herbert (who won this match and then later, won the Championship)