Nadal aims to defend Indian Wells title

INDIAN WELLS (California)—Rafael Nadal won the first of his six titles last season at Indian Wells. The second-seeded Nadal hopes to repeat the feat this season at the $3.6 million Pacific Life Open, which began play on Thursday.
The world No. 2, Nadal ended a nine-month drought last year when he defeated Novak Djokovic in the final of this ATP Masters Series event. The Spanish southpaw went on to also win titles at the French Open, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome and Stuttgart.
Nadal, 21, lost to Andy Roddick in the Dubai quarterfinals last week but remained second in the ATP rankings, 350 points behind Roger Federer.
Ranked first in the world for a record 215 consecutive weeks, Federer is the top seed here for the fifth straight year and could potentially face the sixth-seeded Roddick in the quarterfinals.
Federer, a three-time winner of the event, will look to rebound from consecutive disappointing losses, including a first-round upset at the hands of Andy Murray last week in Dubai. The Swiss superstar also was defeated by Djokovic in the Australian Open semifinals.
Federer was stunned last year at this hardcourt event by Guillermo Canas, who upset the world No. 1 in the second round. The reigning Australian Open champion, Djokovic is seeded third.
All 32 seeded players have a bye in the opening round of the dual-gender event.
In unseeded action Thursday, a pair of all-American matches took place. Robby Ginepri defeated Vincent Spadea, 6-1, 6-1, while rising star Donald Young downed Bobby Reynolds, 6-3, 6-4. Ginepri advances to meet Spain’s Carlos Moya, the world No. 19, in the second round. Young’s win secured a second-round match with Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, the world No. 32 who lost to American Andy Roddick in the finals at Dubai.—Agencies