Check out the action as Sesil Karatantcheva defeats Nelly Radeva 6-1, 6-3 to secure a wild card into the 2008 Pacific Life Open Qualifying draws.

Levar Harper-Griffith d. A.J. Bartlett, 7-6 (5), 6-2

Sesil Karatantcheva d. McCall Jones, 6-0, 6-3

Nelly Radeva d. Raquel Kops-Jones, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4

Roman Borvanov d. Travis Kinard, 6-1, 6-0

As sound checks went on in the background and last-minute preparations were carried out across the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, stadiums two and three offered dramatic showdowns in the fight for a wild card into the qualifying draws of the Pacific Life Open.

Only in the case of Levar Harper-Griffith was a Challenger-Round finalist not ousted from the competition in today's pre-qualifying semifinal. While some very passionate tennis was on display, it made a good example of the difference between a junior national champion and a mid-ranked ATP pro.

Four finalists from last month's Challenger Round advanced to today's pre-qualifier where they faced ATP and WTA players just shy of the the cut-off for next week's qualifying draws.

Probably the most remarkable display of a difference in playing ability was the match between Travis Kinard and Roman Borvanov. Kinard managed only one game in a match that took less than an hour to complete. A freshman at Cal-Berkeley and former three-time letter winner at San Marino High School, Kinard played a strong baseline game with good variation at the net. It proved to be not enough against Borvanov's near-perfect game and blazing serves.

Following a two-year suspension for twice testing positive for the steroid nandrolone, 19-year-old Sesil Karatantcheva makes a return to the same site as her professional debut. At 14, Karatantcheva advanced to the third round of the Pacific Life Open, eventually losing to Maria Sharapova.

Today, Karatantcheva made easy work of blue-chip senior McCall Jones from Coto De Caza, California. Despite Jones' excellent form and powerhouse returns, Karatantcheva took the first set without a loss and giving up three games in the second set.

The Pre-Qualifying final kicks off Sunday at noon when Levar Harper-Griffith faces Roman Borvanov. Sesil Karatancheva will compete against Nelly Radeva. The two finalists will advance to the qualifying rounds beginning on Monday.

The city of Indian Wells is a quiet town right now; plenty of hotel rooms; front-row parking; no restaurant reservations needed.

All this will change come Monday when the qualifying rounds of the 2008 Pacific Life Open begin at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. As organizers scramble to create next week's draws, vendors set up their booths and last-minute preparations are being made to the grounds, there's a competition about to begin on the outer courts.

Two male and two female finalists from last month's Challenger Round are warming up for the semifinal of the Pre-Qualifier. This is a unique opportunity for one male and one female winner to receive wild cards into Monday's qualifiers.

Here's how it works: last month 64 men and 64 women took part in the Challenger Round, four finalists from which (two men, two women) are here today to face two ATP and two WTA pros who just missed the cut-off for entry into the qualifying draws. The line up:

Stadium #2: Levar Harper-Griffith (USA) vs. A.J. Bartlett (USA)
McCall Jones (USA) vs. Sesil Karatantcheva (BUL)

Stadium #3: Raquel Kops-Jones (USA) vs. Nelly Radeva (USA)
Travis Kinard (USA) vs. Roman Borvanov (USA)

This is a chance for local stars and up-and-coming players to test their mettle against the pros. It's a storybook opportunity. But first these young hopefuls have to prove they're ready for the big time.

From a press release:

An impressive group of American players, including veterans Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri and rising stars Donald Young, John Isner, Vania King, Asha Rolle, Bethanie Mattek, Angela Haynes, Madison Brengle and Melanie Oudin have been granted wild cards into the 2008 Pacific Life Open Qualifying draw, beginning Monday, March 10.

Former top-ten player Mario Ancic and outstanding Juniors Urszula Radwanska from Poland and Anastasia Pivovarova from Russia have also been granted wildcards into the event.

Two other wild cards will be given to the winners of the Pacific Life Open Pre-Qualifying tournament, March 8 and 9.

This year marks the seventh time that Mardy Fish will be playing the Pacific Life Open. He started the 2008 season with quarterfinal showings at San Jose and Delray Beach and scored a sensational upset of Tommy Robredo at the Australian Open. Last year he was a finalist at Pilot Pen Tennis in New Haven and reached the quarterfinals or better four other times. Ginepri, a close friend of Fish, has started to turn his tennis fortunes around with two impressive semifinal efforts in the last month at San Jose and Delray Beach.

Teenager Donald Young broke through the top 100 for the first time last year and is currently ranked No. 85 in the world. A former World No. 1 ranked Junior, Young was a quarterfinalist in Memphis recently and last year won the Challenger in Aptos, California and reached the final of another four Challenger events. Isner meanwhile started to make his mark on the tour last summer when he was the runner-up to Andy Roddick in Washington and took a set off Roger Federer at the US Open. He won the Challenger in Lexington and reached the quarters or better of five other Challengers. So far this year, the 6’9" star’s best result is a quarterfinals appearance at San Jose.

Vania King, from Southern California, won her first career title in 2006 at Bangkok and last year was a quarterfinalist at Quebec City and Bangkok. Rolle was a quarterfinalist at the Futures event in Clearwater, Florida this year while Haynes made the final of the Futures tournament at Sunrise, Florida. Mattek ended the 2007 season in the top 100 for the second straight year and recently upset World No. 13 Tatiana Golovin in Memphis. Brengle and Oudin both have won a number of ITF Junior titles over the course of their young careers. Last year, Brengle won the Belgian International Juniors and was the runner-up at the Junior Wimbledon, while Oudin won the Eddie Herr Junior Title in Bradenton, Florida and was the runner-up at the Orange Bowl.

Croatian Mario Ancic is one of the more charismatic young players in tennis. Previously ranked as high as No. 7 in the world, he struggled with illness and injury in 2007, missing six months of action. He now seems to be well and reached the finals at Marseille and the semifinals at Zagreb earlier this year.

Seventeen year old Urszula Radwanska, currently the No. 1 ranked Junior in the world and sister of World No. 19 Agnieszka Radwanska, is still playing a limited schedule on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, but last year had the thrill of her young career when she won the Junior Wimbledon title. Pivavorva is also a future star and earlier this year won a Challenger event at Tampa Bay, Florida. In addition, she added three Challenger titles to her resume last year on the circuit.

Wildcards for the men's qualifying draw were also awarded to Michael McClune, Ryan Thacher and Jesse Levine. Wild cards for the women's qualifying draw were awarded to Riza Zalameda, Anne Yelsey, Coco Vandeweghe, Gail Brodsky and Amber Liu.

The 2008 Pacific Life Open will again be featuring the innovative Hawk Eye technology for player challenges. I figured a little background info on the subject may be in order:

“If anyone's been listening to my commentary the past year then they know I'm in favor of using replay. I think it will make tennis more interesting.” -John McEnroe

When did tennis jump into the 21st Century? I'm referring to this new technology called Hawk-Eye or Player Challenge. I was watching the '07 Rogers Cup when I first witnessed this impressive device for line calling and instant replay.

It does make tennis more interesting. But how is it changing the game?

According to the hawk-eye rules: Each player receives three challenges per set. When the player challenges a point and loses, the player loses that point and one challenge. If the player wins a challenge, he wins the point and the number of challenges remains as it was. If a player has no challenges remaining and they go on a tie break, he gets one challenge.

It's a rather fair system; a player can stop play and challenge a call. And if he is wrong he loses that point anyway. What it does do is break up the pacing of the game -- a bonus for Nadal who prefers this tactic to shake his opponents. And if the replay is in the challenger's favor, then its a huge psychological boost. In this way Hawk-Eye has become another tool in a player's gear bag; another aspect of player strategy adding to the psychological aspect of the game.

Personally, I think it's some of the most interesting ruling technology to come out of professional sports. But how accurate is it?

Using multiple high-frame-rate cameras, Hawk-Eye finds the exact 3D position of the ball at a series of time intervals leading into a bounce. From these 3D positions, a trajectory of the ball is calculated. Hawk-Eye uses this trajectory to project where the ball will first make contact with the ground and then how much the ball will compress and skid once it has contacted the ground. From this, the “bounce mark” is determined up to 2-3mm.



2007 Wimbeldon: In the third game of the fourth set, with Roger Federer a break down and serving at 30-30, he did not play at a ball near the baseline. He thought that it was out, the line judge thought it was out, the umpire thought it was out and a BBC freeze frame seemed to confirm this, too.

However, after a challenge from Rafael Nadal, Hawk-Eye showed the shot in. Federer lost his temper, declaring that the machine was “killing him” and demanded that it be turned off.

One of the biggest problems with this situation was the skidding of the ball following first contact, and the use of television-quality replay affecting the decision of the audience.

Television replays look deceptive because the cameras are at the wrong angle looking down at the ball. The ball also has a lot of motion blur and the cameras do not work at a sufficiently high frame rate to capture the crucial part of when the ball first touches the ground.

What television cameras see as the ball's contact area is actually up to 10cm further than first contact when accounting for ball skid. These frame rates are more accurate when viewing at the 100 fps of Hawk-Eye cameras (as opposed to 150 fps of tv cameras).

If Hawk-Eye technology was around in the 70s would we have still been witness to the fabulous tirades of McEnroe?

Probably.