Indian Wells Tuesday - Stunning Upset!

As the action draws to a close today, we finish what was a day of not all that thrilling tennis, up until the last match. First, a look at the other action around the grounds. Most of the seeded players cruised today. Roddick, Soderling, Murray, and Robredo all made it through without dropping a set. Only Soderling even went to a tiebreak. Tsonga lost a set on route to victory, but it was only a momentary lapse, and Montanes did not really have his teeth in the second and third sets.

The second-last match of the night, between James Blake and Nicolas Almagro, was a tight one, but was marred by some admittedly questionable calls at key moments, and subsequently more frustration than is necessary from Blake. He was playing well, but Almagro was serving bombs and smacking winners off both sides. Usually, Almagro can't keep that up for an entire match, but he was on tonight. It's no shame that James lost, and hopefully he'll be encouraged by the strength of his player this week.

The following match had all of the intensity and none of the controversy, as well as a much more marquee match-up. Twenty-seventh seed Marcos Baghdatis was facing Roger Federer in a rematch of the pair's Australian Open final from 2007. They had faced each other five other times, and Baghdatis was 2-15 in sets against the mighty Fed. When Federer won the first set 7-5 tonight, it looked like it would be more of the same. But Baghdatis fought back. Even though he was down by several match points, he brought the match to a third-set tiebreak and won with a single minibreak, 7-4. It's really a famous victory for the Cypriot, who is playing like he was when he made the top ten. There's no reason he can't find his way back there, if he can keep up this level of play.

As Cara Black and Liezel Huber also lost today, that means that the only top seeds left in the tournament are Nestor and Zimonjic in the men's doubles. This really is an odd tournament, in terms of favorites dropping like flies. Today, the women's side was relatively quiet, with the only upset between Maria Martinez-Sanchez and Yanina Wickmayer, which isn't a huge upset by any means. And Suarez-Navarro and Kleybanova are still on-court, so who knows what will happen there. So far, there have been six breaks in seven games, so Suarez-Navarro is up a hold.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the two halves of the tournament come together. Baghdatis is really at a disadvantage, having had to play so late and then come back tomorrow. Fortunately, he'll be last on Court 2 to play Tommy Robredo, but just based on health, it's going to be a tough ask for the Cypriot to follow up that win.

Also on court 2, Guillermo-Garcia Lopez plays Juan Monaco, which is not quite the match-up that you'd expect this deep into a hardcourt Masters series event. Good for both of these guys for making it this far, though. Unfortunately, they don't have much interest here in the states, so they're up first. Look for that match to be poorly-attended. Next up, Ivan Ljubicic faces Novak Djokovic, and if Djokovic decides to leave the court for a set again this match, expect the veteran Ljubicic to take advantage, unlike Kohlschreiber in the last round. There might be another upset here, depending on whether or not Djokovic shows up. Finally on court 2, Viktor Troicki will play his second game of the tournament against Tomaz Berdych. I'll admit that I don't give Troicki much of a shot here, particularly with how well Berdych played against Verdasco.

On center court, there are some real crackerjack matches. John Isner is playing Rafael Nadal, and though Nadal's knees have not seemed to be troubling him thus far this tournament, the big-hitting giant will give them their sternest test yet. After that, Tsonga and Soderling are playing in the earliest meeting of top ten players in this tournament. Both are playing great, but Soderling has a 2-0 advantage. Tsonga sometimes doesn't handle playing against big servers that well, which is strange since he's one of the best servers on tour. Soderling may have the advantage, but this should be close.

In the night session, both Andys are in action, but not against each other. Andy Roddick faces Austrian Jurgen "Tuna" Melzer, who got a walkover from Simon Gruel. Roddick's last opponent had gotten a retirement as well, and it didn't seem to do him much good. But Melzer is a tougher opponent, even though Roddick is 9-0 against him. As Bagdhatis showed today, a dominating head-to-head does not mean a dominating victory. The last match of the day features Andy Murray against Nicolas Almagro. Now Almagro is exactly the type of heavy-hitter who can trouble Murray, and if the Spaniard plays (and particularly serves) as well as he did against Blake, then Murray could be in trouble. But Murray can have a way of blunting those players' power, and getting them off their game enough to start missing. Look for him to do that tomorrow.

One final little NB - Isner and Querrey are playing Karlovic and Vemic in doubles tomorrow. The two biggest players on the tour on opposite sides of the net again.

Really, the latter stages of the tournament begins tomorrow in earnest. I'm anxious to see if the trend of upsets continues.