This was the match of the day, a lot better and closer than I had anticipated. Lots of long deuce games, with both women exchanging blazing serves, returns and groundstrokes, and were not hesitant to follow their big shots into the net. The crowd roared often, and gave both women a well-deserved cheer at the end. If this is the future of women's tennis, count me in!

There is no question that Alexandra Stevenson has come a long way in the eight months since her surprising Wimbledon run. Her backhand is no longer the liability that it was last year: it is a lot more steady and firm shot than it was and she is not afraid to hit it hard. Meanwhile, her serve, always her big but not always consistent weapon, was powerful and steady for the most part, with a first serve percentage of about 60% for most of the match.

Serena did not play badly by any means, although she was not exactly razor sharp. She was visibly perturbed at herself at times, particularly when she lost a 3-1 second set lead by dropping five consecutive games to Alexandra, suddenly making errors on her usually-reliable backhand side. But Williams kept her head, stepped up the pressure, and finally came through in the clutch. In the third set Williams won a long game to take a 3-1 lead, and that seemed to take a lot of steam out of Stevenson. "If I'd won that, it could have been a different game," admitted Alexandra after the match.

The Williamses and Stevenson have been close since childhood, but it was no-holds-barred warfare on the court. At one point in the second set, with Stevenson up 4-3 and Serena looking to break, Williams met a hard Stevenson serve with a huge forehand return winner, pumped her fist and shot a long, glaring stare Alexandra's way. Interestingly, Stevenson said after the match that, because of the age difference, she had never played Serena in their childhood years: "I always played Venus."

Alexandra has had a tough time since her Wimbledon breakthrough, but takes encouragement from going toe-to-toe with one of the best players in the world. Alexandra confided that, when she and Serena hugged after the match, Serena's words to her were, "Great match, you're there." Maybe not quite there yet, I would say, but getting closer very quickly.

Next up for the third-seeded Williams: Rita Grande, in what should be an easier match for a place in the quarterfinals.

In the biggest upset of the tournament so far, Cara of the tennis-playing Black family knocked out 12th seed and Australian Open semifinalist Jennifer Capriati. By doing so, the Zimbabwean underdog notched perhaps the biggest win of her career in the process. Capriati rarely looked like the better player on this day, as her wildness -- 57 unforced errors versus 24 winners -- sent shot after shot long, wide or into the net.

Capriati did win the first set 7-5, but even then she looked shaky for the most part. Black was serving for the set at 5-4 but suddenly became tentative. Capriati seized the initiative and won three straight games to take the set, in what was probably her best sequence of the match. In particular, in the exciting 11th game Capriati produced the shot of the day, a running backhand passing shot down the line, hit from well out of court, that brought a mighty cheer from the fans.

However, in the second and third sets, Capriati disappeared under her avalanche of errors, as Black steadied her game (19 errors in the first set, 17 in the second and third combined). Particularly, Black began attacking the net more often, and Capriati's lack of precision made it difficult for her to pass the Zimbabwean with any regularity. And in the hot desert sun, the well-conditioned Black was clearly more fresh than Capriati as the match wore on. Cara feels that she is finally getting the confidence to use her skills at the net at key moments, as she did today, and that this will help her in future (she looked extremely solid at net, winning 16 of 22 net points). She talked about her increasing confidence in her volleying: "I think it takes a little bit longer to find the confidence to do it in matches. It's easier to do it in practice, but to go out there and put it into play is a different thing." As well as her effective net attacks, Black made good use of an off-speed slice backhand to vary the pace for her opponent.

While Capriati recognized that she struggled with "just kind of everything," she went out of her way to praise Black: "it was the best I've seen her play." Cara's career has been slow in taking off since her championship junior days, but she is hoping this will be a watershed year. "This year I'm hoping to get into the top twenty, make a breakthrough, and eventually as the years go on top ten, and see how far I can go."

Having opened up the draw for herself by beating the twelfth seed, Black will move on to the third round, where she will face Belgian veteran Sabine Appelmans, a 6-2, 7-6 winner over Tara Snyder today.

Mauresmo injured:
One of the most appetizing matchups was the one between two young European stars, Amélie Mauresmo and Kim Clijsters. What should have been a dandy second-rounder was aborted when Mauresmo suffered a back injury early in the match and retired at 0-3, 15-15. Mauresmo called for the trainer during the changeover at 0-3, and lay face down for the maximum allowed time while the therapist worked on her lower back.

After the injury time out Mauresmo tried to make a go of it, but it was obvious that she could not move her upper body without pain. After two points she shook her head and conceded the match to Clijsters, and walked off the court in tears. Kim's third round opponent will be the Russian fireplug Tatiana Panova, and Serena Williams looms as a possible quarterfinal opponent for the talented Belgian teen. As for Mauresmo's back, which has been troubling the Frenchwoman on and off for the last two weeks, the injury will be fully evaluated on Monday.

Rochus takes la Guerre de la Wallonie:
The first few matches of the day on all courts were devoted to men's qualifying action, and the match that caught our eye was a battle for Walloon bragging rights between young Belgian Christophe Rochus (seeded 11th mainly thanks to his surprising run to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in January) and that most Floridian of Belgians, Nick Bollettieri pupil Xavier Malisse. The diminutive Rochus, the David to Malisse's Goliath in this matchup, won one for the little guys, 7-6 (13-11), 6-3.

The marathon first-set tie-break, won 13-11 by Rochus, had an interesting particularity: during a stretch of points starting at at 6-6, ten consecutive points went against the server! That must be a record of sorts. At 11-11, finally someone held: it was Rochus, to make it 11-12 on Malisse's serve. Malisse didn't pick up on the hint that winning a point on his serve might be a wise idea, hit a forehand wide, handing the first set to Rochus. Malisse bombed his way impressively to a 3-1 lead in the second set, but his concentration lapses proved costly again. In the fifth game Malisse got into a lengthy dispute with the umpire over a call and then an "audible obscenity" code violation warning he received during the argument. After this incident Malisse appeared to unravel in a heap of errors, and the steady, more composed Rochus won the next four games, and the match.

Rochus's next opponent in qualifying is the Slovak Jan Kroslak.

Mixed fortunes for Asian male hopes:
The two men who will likely be dueling for the title of Asian Number One this year, young Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand and India's doubles ace Leander Paes, had differing fortunes in their qualifying matches, which were simultaneously played on adjacent courts. Srichaphan used his thumping serve and stylish, powerful forehand to claim the first set easily against Marcos Ondruska, but the experienced South African lifted his game as Srichaphan could not maintain his tempo, and Ondruska escaped with a 6-4 third-set win. Meanwhile, Paes, who is fresh off a victory in the Mumbai Challenger, was beaming after surprising the top qualifying seed, Swiss teen sensation Roger Federer, also in three close sets. Wouldn't you know it: It will be Ondruska versus Paes tomorrow, the winner to qualify for a spot in the main draw.

Quotable quotes:
-- Cara Black says that her older brothers, ATP pros Byron and Wayne, have offered invaluable advice about life on the tour, such as: "Eat right. Don't eat all the junk in airports!"
-- Martina Hingis may be living in golf-mad Florida, but she has no intention of taking up the sport. "I'm not patient enough for golf," she admitted with her ever-present smile. "I've been to a course near where I live, but never got past the driving range."