Home players had mixed fortunes on the second day of action down in Indian Wells. Bethanie Mattek-Sands won in straight sets against Yaroslava Shvedova while 16 year old Sloane Stephens played and won her first ever WTA tour main draw match, beating Lucie Hradecka 7-6 7-6. Is she a possible star of the future? Too early to tell but hopefully since there isn't a lot of young American talent coming through. Speaking of young American talent, Melanie Oudin fell to a disappointing 3-6 6-3 6-0 loss to Roberta Vinci, which further compounds my theory that her US Open quarterfinal was a bit of a fluke. Shenay Perry lost out to fellow qualifier Karolina Sprem 2-6 6-4 3-6.
There were wins for Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro and tour's second best mother (after Kim Clijsters of course) Sybille Bammer who both needed 3 sets to progress. However my tip for a potential upset, Michelle Larcher de Brito, went down 6-2 6-2 to Alexandra Dulgheru. Fortunately for me my other tip Elena Baltacha did make it to round 2 by beating wild card Alexa Glatch yesterday.
The action heats up tomorrow as the seeded players start to play their opening matches. Caroline Wozniaki, Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva should all have easy matches while Justine Henin faces unpredictable Argentine Gisela Dulko.
Oh, and if you were wondering who's foot that is in that big ol' cast its poor Anna-Lena Gronefeld. I mentioned the other day that she had withdrawn and now we can see why. Get well soon ALG!
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