Round 4 of the BNP Paribas Open 2013 at Indian Wells starts on Wednesday and it might actually be the best day of the tourney to have tickets as 8 exciting matches are on schedule. 8 of the ATP top 10 have made it so far, with world #4 David Ferrer and #9 Janko Tipsarevic being the only casualties. They have been replaced by big serving South African Kevin Anderson and a qualifier and also the most improved player of the year, the volatile Latvian, Ernests Gulbis who still on his winning streak. Here is the schedule.
As you can see, Roger’s match is the 3rd of the day (2nd match of the afternoon session) in Stadium 1 after Simon vs. Anderson and WTA’s Kvitova vs. Kirilenko. This all Swiss match will probably not start before 3:00pm local time (10:00pm GMT) assuming Kvitova vs. Kirilenko takes at least an hour.
In Round 3 Roger’s opponent was a player he had never faced. Round 4 presents an opponent whose game he knows like the back of his beautiful single-handed backhand. Stan and Roger go back many years and have faced each other 13 times. Even more than that, they’ve played doubles together on many occasions at ATP tourneys, Davis Cup and the Olympics with the highlight being their gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Wawrinka is currently ranked 18 in the world but reached a career high of 9 in 2008. He has already had an intense 3 months in 2013 with his Australian Open Round 4 match; that 5-set thriller with Djokovic was one of the best matches of the Open. He then played a historic doubles match with Marco Chiudinelli in the Davis Cup tie that lasted for 7 hours and 1 minute. What was more gut-wrenching was that he lost both those matches, so close yet so far. When it comes to his record against Roger however, it’s not close at all as can be seen below:
Maybe it’s a case of match-ups or Roger is in his head, both could be plausible. But this year Wawrinka is coming in with good form. And he pushed Roger hard in their last two meetings at Shanghai and Cincinnati last year. On the other hand, Roger’s back is a serious concern. He didn’t practice at all on Tuesday and I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign. Thus this just might be the perfect time for Stan to finally add one more match on his column of wins against Roger since his last one in 2009.
However, despite all this I have chosen to have faith in Roger; faith in his abilities to recuperate à la Wimbledon 2012; faith in his H2H with Stan; and faith in his ability to create magic out of nothingness. It is also a day match and the heat will be much better for his back than the cold desert air of night matches. Only 4 more matches Maestro, you can do this! Push through it, lift the trophy and end this season on a high before you go into hibernation. Allez! We believe in you! We believe in Roger Federer!
rogerfedererfan 
March 13, 2013 at 9:28 am
I think he didn’t practice to give his body rest. Not because there is something terribly wrong. If you see what I mean…
And I wrote somewhere else, that I found it reassuring that he was quite talkative about his back problem, while I think that if he’d feel it were something very serious, he would have been more quiet abou it… He sounded confident, but not the kind of confident that you have to not give your opponent confidence in advance, but confident as in that he really thinks it’s an old problem reoccuring and he knows exactly what to do and he’ll be okay. But you find me all tough now and positive, but of course, tonight I’ll be nervous and anxious whether or not I was right and he feels well enough to play and hopefully then win! I think if he’s ok, he’ll win. Although it’ll be very tough. Might not be in Twitter for a while, cause this is a big one… You know how that works… But we’ll see… Just like we’ll see how it goes… Fingers crossed!!!!! #FaithInFed
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March 13, 2013 at 9:33 am
From an interview today (believe it was the Daily Mail that that was in):
“Federer’s back suffered one of its periodic tweaks during his third round victory over Ivan Dodig, but he feels he will be fine to face compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka today”
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March 13, 2013 at 10:44 am
Hi Natasja! Thanks for reading and commenting! I hope that too.. that he’s just resting his back. And that he’ll be able to turn it around during the match itself. I’m so happy his match is that early in the day… the warmth will be good and should he win, it will give him a longer time to recuperate… though this early match means it’s on at 4am my time *crying*. But rather me not getting any sleep than Roger having to play in the cold. I think his back is the only reason he could lose to Stan, meaning, other than this extraordinary circumstance, there is not way Stan would win. Even Roger said it himself once, he is in Stan’s head somehow. Else how to explain losing the first set in Cincy last year or even better, losing in Shanghai after winning that first set? And yes Stan quite possibly has a better backhand than Roger, but Roger, well he has everything else and more. Were it not for the back I think we would possibly know the conclusion. But I have my hopes high! He’s been very positive this tourney, his body language, his interviews, all of it. So I can still see him going to he distance and completely winning it. But for now I’ll just take it one a t a time, starting with Stan. Less than 12 hours to go! Allez Roger!
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March 13, 2013 at 11:13 am
The questions and comments on Twitter make me more nervous! Maybe I should stay away from it for a while… I keep thinking “what if I’m seeing and feeling it all wrong?”… Do you know the feeling?? Anyway… I should, and we all should actually maybe, just put my faith in him and if he’s talking about it as if it’s manageable and nothing to worry about too much, I’ll should keep thinking that too… He knows best… #fedlove
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March 13, 2013 at 2:05 pm
I know what you mean… everyone on twitter is nervous, which I understand, but it does have a snowballing effect sometimes! I think this will be one of those matches when I will stay off twitter until things are going ridiculously well. For now I’ll just put my faith in Fed and just pay attention to the match itself. He obviously knows best how to handle these situations and hopefully he, Paul and Stephane have figured out how to handle this (by the way is Luthi there? I don’t remember seeing him actually). #FedLoveForSure!
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March 13, 2013 at 2:32 pm
Not sure if Luthi is there actually no… Can’t remember seeing him either tbh… Maybe I saw him once during practice…?? Now I want to know 😉 Anyway. Yes. Stay positive. I’ll talk to you later, some way, somehow… I do trust him and if he were not to play cause it was too bad, we would have heard it by now I guess. Fingers and everything crossed!! And again: if he’d have to play well just on the love that is out there alone, he’ll win this and pick up the trophy again… 😉
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March 13, 2013 at 4:20 pm
So totally agree with your last sentence! And yes, will just try to stay positive. Only 6 hours left! Won’t be much on twitter but will know you’re watching too so I won’t feel alone in my nervousness! I should go to bed soon so I can get SOME sleep before 4am! But I’m also too excited to sleep so not sure how that’s going to happen! *sigh* Such tennis fan problems we have! 🙂 Will chat soon! Allez Rogi!
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