Indian Wells proves tennis is very much alive

INDIAN WELLS — Google the cover of the May 1994 Sports Illustrated with the headline “Is Tennis Dying?” and you get the response, no good matches.

Which is a kick (if not a kick serve) and certainly incorrect. How about Federer-Nadal at Wimbledon? Or any match involving Serena Williams, especially that U.S. Open final against sister Venus.

Indeed, the Google reference was to items that in content were similar or connected to that cover, which showed a tennis ball shaped like a question mark, which some 30 years later is available from Amazon for 4.50. 

Tennis never has been more alive, in part because of the great players. In part, because the promoters, the U.S. Open in the late summer, the BNP Paribas Open now underway as always at Indian Wells just down the road from Palm Springs, understand both the sport and the sporting public.

Tennis no longer is just a game, it’s a part, a moveable feast — literally with the restaurants on the grounds. 

You wonder how many people in the record crowds here have picked up a racquet--probably a great many, he says answering his own question — but unquestionably they have picked up the vibe.

Tennis is constructed on personality, names and fame. All sports are, of course, but tennis — and golf — lack a home team. Thus it better not lack individual stars, new kids on the block as it were, as the recent greats put on years as they pick up trophies.

Indian Wells Tennis Garden — yes, a pretentious label but we’re hardly in the borough of subtlety — was built on a hunk of desert, Larry Ellison’s gift to the pastime as much as to himself.

It was 80 degrees Sunday at Indian Wells, perfect for America’s top-ranked women’s player. Jessica Pegula defeated Anastasia Potapova 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 and the almost-birthday girl, she turns 19 on Monday, CoCo Gauff, won over Linda Noskova, 6-4, 6-3

No surprises there, but an apparent surprise in the men’s when qualifier Cristian Garin of Chile shocked third-seeded Casper Ruud of Norway 6-4, 7-6 (2) at the BNP Paribas Open on Sunday for his first win over a top-five player in nearly two years.

Garin, ranked No. 97, had 39 winners while Ruud, ranked No. 4, managed just 15 winners against 29 unforced errors in a match that lasted 1 hour, 59 minutes.

“Casper is one of the players that I really admire,” Garin said. “I’m so happy to be playing like that, being aggressive, going to the net. That’s the way that I like to play and the only way that I have to beat these kinds of players.”

Just the other day Ruud, a two-time Grand Slam finalist, said he watches golf on television and regrets he is unable to enter a pro-am like the Pebble Beach AT&T because he is preoccupied with tennis. At least until now.