Dates: March 11-22, 2009
Category: Premier
Prize Money: $4,500,000
Draw: 96M/48Q/32D
Surface: Hardcourt/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Steve Simon

Official Website:



2008 Performance:

R128 Bye
R64 Haynes, Angela Usa 6-1 6-2
R32 Zheng, Jie Chn 6-4 6-2
R16 Mirza, Sania Ind 6-1 7-6(4)
Q lost to Sharapova, Maria Rus 6(2)-7 1-6

Hopefully this will be a good tournament. I have high hopes...

Poor Maria. I'm not a fan of her, but her unique killer instinct, her great shots and her fighting spirit are just amazing. She's the only real number 1 right now. When Danka is losing to her i'm going to be mad on her again. But always i thought she's great in her own way.

As for Danka, this time I really hope she gets a good draw, if she wins some matches, she definitely could get her confidence back. It's a good tourney for her, but an early loss could do a lot of damage to her confidence.

Where did you read that Sharapova is out? I hope she can get it back together, not b/c I like her but she does "do" a lot for the sport. Although she seems to be setting up for a second career with all her off court activities.

I got it from a guy at tennisforum who has the updated entry list.

next monday danka at No 36,will be seeded 32(sisters,srebotnik,petrova out)
i am waiting this tournament how and how

With Sisters, Srebotnik, Petrova and Sharapova out, wouldn't Daniela be seeded 30, given her ranking on Monday (2 March) was 35. Or does Indian Wells use the ranking on Monday 9 March??

Oh well.. its all trivial really. Seeded 30 or 32, she's bound to draw a 1-8 seed in the third round anyway. Important thing is she's seeded and has a 1R bye. I just hope there's no dangerous floaters near her section of the draw.

Yes, it would be #30. But as you say, it really doesn't matter at all.
As an aside, Matt Cronin has a still to be confirmed report that Sharapova will play doubles with Elena Vesnina at Indian Wells in perparation for her return to singles competition at Miami.

I know who I would prefer her playing in R32. Also Safina would be nice. Mainly because I want Safina out as fast as possible and Daniela to advance as far as possible. It would just be lovely to see those two wishes combined

I have a bigger list of who I would prefer her NOT to play in R32 as opposed to other way. I think the addition of Azarenka in the top 8 as opposed to Petrova made her potential R32 match that much tougher. Still, there are quite a lot of players there Daniela is capable of beating, but she really needs to firstly get there, and secondly, to be on her game.

Btw.. i too would like to see Safina out quickly, and it would be even sweeter if Daniela was the one who did it. Not that I dislike Safina, i just want to delay her chance of reaching #1.

Lol, i agree. I don't think Safina is a hugely deserving number one player. I'm not a fan of Serena, but the mantle firmly belongs to her... for now.

As a side note. I can't remember the reason why the Williams sisters never play at Indian Wells. Anyone care to fill me in?
because of their antifans - some people didn´t like to watch ,,black sisters" there........

This is a really important tournament for Daniela as she has a lot of points to defend here. The third round match will be difficult because she'll get one of the top players and I'd want to avoid Dementieva or Zvonareva given their records against Daniela and Azarenka's been in good form this year. I feel Daniela would have a decent chance against any of the other top seeds, but it would still be a tough match for her. If she could get past the third round, she's got a great chance to go on a good run, but she's still go to get there and it is the cliche of one match at a time.

If Daniela can get through here and Miami ranked in the top 40, then I feel very confident that she'll be able to rise up the rankings and she's got a good chance to get into the top 20 by the autumn. She's barely got anything to defend between Ponte Vedra Beach and the US Open, so she has an excellent opportunity to go up the rankings and I feel she's close to get really good results again. There are some fairly average players ranked above her that I don't think will be able to maintain their ranking or are ranked about as highly as they can realistically get and I believe Daniela will outperform and get better results than them so will surpass them anyway. A good win and a good run would do wonders for Daniela and her confidence.

Daniela & Ai will also have a great chance in the doubles and I can see Hantuyama having a good year.