After a dark and stormy night, the sun shines at Indian Wells

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — "Ladies and gentlemen," said the guy with the microphone at courtside, "Andy Murray."

Indeed, it was, specifically, Sir Andrew Baron Murray OBE. Except instead of entering, he was departing.

A quick turn, a wave of appreciation to fans who had just seen another one of their favorites lose in semi-rapid fashion — Leylah Fernandez was the other — and the BNP Paribas Open was without another top attraction.

That's the way it is so often is in tennis, where the talent is relatively balanced — especially with no Serena, Roger or Rafa — and a double fault or wide backhand may be the difference between staying around or moving on.

It's been said perhaps all too often: Tennis is as much a sport of names as much as games. It's Hollywood in sneakers, a legitimate analogy down here in the desert where streets are names for Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra.

The star system is paramount, and that is why Leylah Fernandez, who got prime time during the U.S. Open, got most of the cheers Tuesday on Stadium Court One, even though Shelby Rogers got their match, 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4), to advance to the quarterfinals.

A short time later, Alexander Zerev, who was a finalist in this year's U.S. Open, which did get him some status even if it didn't get him the title, defeated Murray, 6-4, 7-6. Promoting a tennis tournament ain't easy even if the tournament's held at Larry Ellison's expensive and magnificent facility near Palm Springs.

This comeback year — the BNP used to be in March, until it was halted by the Covid-19 surge in 2020 — it happens to be the same time and not too far away from the Giants-Dodgers playoffs.

Then on Monday night, it had weather woes. Up in L.A. for Game 3, there was high wind. Down here, we had rain in the desert. In October. Tuesday, as a sparse few spectators huddled under stairways and entrance tunnels, I was tempted to borrow from Snoopy, the familiar beagle and begin a story, "It was a dark and stormy night...”

Of course, Tuesday, like the lyrics of a song, the clouds were gone from around 10,000-foot Mount San Jacinto, skies were blue and the athletes and fans could shed their jackets and their doubts.

Poor Francis Tiafoe, the American. He got soaked literally and figuratively, beaten by Hubert Hurkacz, 6-3, 6-2. The match started in a downpour at 6:10 p.m., and after starts and stops and splashes and drips ended in a mist at 9:15.

Tough luck for the contestants and fans, but the next morning the courts were dry, and Rogers was en route to a victory over Fernandez.

"She's had such an incredible season," Rogers said of Fernandez.

Rogers' season was maybe less incredible, but it included an upset of the world's number 2 ranked female player, Ash Barty, in the U.S. Open.

"I thought it was an incredible battle (Tuesday). And we both played really well at times. It was a sort of tug-of-war at times. It was really about who was dictating play."

But it usually is. Once in a while, a great counter-puncher takes the match. Usually, it's the player who has control.

So often in sports the comments deal with possibility and no reality, about what might have been had a ball not gone out. So perhaps it is best to ignore the idea that Murray, working his way back from two knee surgeries, would have returned to the top 100 with a victory over Hurkacz.

"I don't want to get back to the top 100," Murray said. "I want to get back to the top 10."

Laylah Fernandez is almost already is there.

Will Leylah become the star that women’s tennis needs?

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — She’s Canadian, which in these days of proscribed determinations means she can’t be America’s Tennis Sweetheart.

So, we concede and declare Leylah Fernandez North America’s sweetheart.

That works doesn’t it? Especially now that citizens of the United States are permitted again to cross the border and also play baseball up there against the Blue Jays — until they were eliminated.

However she’s listed, there’s no question Fernandez is what the game never has too much of, a young, aggressive player loaded with personality and confidence who’s not afraid to make a comment or hit a sliced backhand.

The non-tennis types — meaning most of us — were unaware of Fernandez until the U.S. Open a few weeks back when, defying predictions if not logic, she turned up in the finals days after turning 19.

That she was beaten by another of the new generation, 18-year-old Emma Raducanu, who also was born in Canada but then moved to England, did nothing to diminish Fernandez’s prospects or popularity.

Is it too much to say that fans at the Open in New York loved the young lady almost as much as the Yankees? Probably, but who cares?

Fernandez has reached the third round of the BNP Paribas Open, and on Monday night in a third-round match she’ll play Shelby Rogers of the U.S., who if she doesn’t have Fernandez’s backstory has some big-time wins, including one over top-ranked Ash Barty in the recent U.S. Open.

It’s the sort of match that tennis can use any time but particularly when it’s going against the fourth game of the Giants-Dodgers playoff 125 miles up the interstate at Dodger Stadium.

Raducanu was here at Indian Wells, oh so briefly, losing her opening match — after which the London Daily Express criticized her for breaking up with her coach.

That’s unlikely to happen for Fernandez. Her coach is her father, Jorge, a one-time soccer player from Ecuador.

“Every day we just got to keep working hard, we got to keep going for it,” Fernandez said after one of her victories at the Open.

“Nothing’s impossible. There’s no limit to what I can do. I’m glad that right now everything’s going well. My dad would tell me all the time there’s no limit to my potential to what I can do.”

So true, but the tennis battlegrounds are littered with the optimism of those who won quickly and then disappeared from the rankings. It’s one thing to get there; it’s something else to stay there.

Consistency is the mark of champions, especially in tennis where the venues and opponents continue to change. Monday morning at Indian Wells, 20 miles from Palm Springs, the weather was perfect. By afternoon, the wind was sweeping through the San Gorgonio Pass.

Fernandez didn’t exactly sweep through her second-round match Sunday night, outlasting the ninth seed, Anastasia Pavlyuchena, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Now, after the Open, in every match Fernandez carries a burden of expectations, hers as much as those of fans and media.

“I did not play my best tennis,” said Fernandez, “made a few mistakes here and there, and she took advantage of it. I was glad I was able to fight back in the second set and figure a way to get the ball back in one more time, take my chances when I got them.”

With the advancing age (40) and not infrequent injuries of Serena Williams, tennis — mainly women’s tennis, North American women’s tennis — will require a new player of charisma and talent to attract fans the way Serena did.

Maybe that player is Leylah Fernandez. Maybe not.

“I am a person who is an introvert, likes puzzles.” said Fernandez after the second round of the BNP. ”I like figuring things out, Sudoku, Rubik's cubes, figuring out problems.”

Tennis is waiting to find out if Fernandez will be able to solve the question of whether she’ll be a star.