Indian Wells thoughts

Has there ever been a slower hard court than the one we're seeing this week? Its pretty much blue clay. Playing into the hands of Rafa who has a great record here.
 
No surprise to see Federer fall early. Hes now something like 4 wins from 28 TMS events since the start of 2007 when he seemed to start taking things a bit easy in them.  Who can blame the great man for this attitude though now hes got 2 kids to entertain. I expect a better showing in Miami although not necessarily a win.
 
Murray has gone back to the passive style which he abandoned for the match in Dubai with Tipsarevic. Its given him wins over journeyman Seppi and Russell but it wont be good enough should he face Rafa here. Even someone like Almagro may give him a bit of trouble this evening.
 
The djoker falls early too. No surprise after his Davis Cup heroics.
 
Despite what looks like a loss to Nadal, John Isner is showing that he is the real deal and can back up his huge serve with decent groundies. Leif  Shiras' assertion that he is shortly going to usurp Roddick as US number one is jumping the gun a bit though. He is still lacking in the movement department for me. He will do very well to ever make the year end champs as Roddick does year in year out.
 
One negative for the tournament - the poor line calling. I know the average age of an indian Wells resident is something like 55 - and it seems its mainly these pensioners calling the lines here this week.