After watching the new aggressive version of Appelmans (Slammin' Sabine?) against Cara Black, I suspected she might at least take a set off a rusty Seles and penciled this one in to start the day, and with extreme reluctance therefore having to miss Spadea-Kafelnikov at the stadium court!

Sure enough, Monica had a tentative start and Slammin' Sabine got out of the blocks blazing. Appelmans was returning well, having success swinging Seles out wide, and nailing forehand and backhand winners in the open court. Seles was having major problems with her first serve and was broken three times in the first set, and seemed hesitant to hit out and dictate the points early, and this allowed Sabine to be the dominant one. Appelmans simply was playing "some unbelievable tennis," as Seles said after the match: painting lines and spanking returns, and Monica had to hope that her own game would pick up or Sabine would cool down.

Appelmans gave Seles an opening in the second set, when she had a lapse when serving at 1-2. Sabine was making what looked like incresingly tired shots, while Monica, while she was still struggling with her serve (51% first serve effectiveness for the match) was picking up the pace from the baseline. While she was not making too many brilliant shots, Seles was now pounding the ball harder and deeper. After this set, I wondered whether Appelmans had tired, come back to earth, or was just saving it for the third set.

Set three started with Appelmans trying some different things to change her fortunes, going to the drop shot and serve and volley now that she was being outplayed from the back. But it wasn't working too well, and the key point of the decisive set came with Appelmans serving at 1-2, 15-30. Appelmans was passed with a ripping cross-court one-handed forehand to set up a Seles break point, which she converted.

Monica raced on to serve for the match at 5-1, but got strangely jittery, double faulted twice, and was broken at love. Seles also looked edgy serving for the match at 5-3, double faulting to give Appelmans an opening at 30-30. However, with the clowd clapping rhythmically to show support, Seles regrouped and closed out the match with a service winner followed by an ace.

After the match she thanked the crowd by clapping her racquet with her hand, as players often do, but this gesture looked particularly genuine. Seles confirmed that the crowd support helped when she got off to a slow start and then was wobbly in the late stages: "They definitely pulled me through."

Seles will need all the support she can get in her upcoming quarterfinal with top seed Martina Hingis, one suspects. Monica is still vulnerable: she rates her current physical conditioning at 65 to 70 percent. Meanwhile, Martina has been laying waste to pretty good players: she has conceded a total of only 11 games against Frazier, Sugiyama and Schett at Indian Wells.

Recall that 16-year-old Kim Clijsters led 5-3 in the third set over Serena Williams at the 1999 US Open before Serena came back to narrowly escape third round defeat in what turned out to be her run to the title. With that in mind, this Williams-Clijsters rematch was a keenly anticipated match on today's program.

There was only one break in the closely contested first set, and it went Williams's way in game five when Clijsters netted an easy backhand volley. The young Belgian had a good opportunity to break back in the following game, but Serena staved off a break point with an ace and two service winners, and then held serve comfortably the for rest of the set.

Serena's serve was one of the keys in the match. The consistency was there, as her first serve percentage was 60%. But the power was impressive as well. In the eighth game of the first set Williams capped off an overwhelming service game with a 121 mph ace, a personal record of which she was extremely proud: "I'm going to call Venus and say '121.' I'm going to start answering my phone '121'." She is still 6 mph behind her sister's top speed, so the family bragging rights will be fairly limited. The Indian Wells venue is famed for being a launching pad for service records, by the way, as both Mark Philippoussis and Greg Rusedski hav e set records here in the past. And as type these lines, Philippoussis, playing Chris Woodforde on centre court, has just popped a 142 mph ace. But I digress: back to our match.

Williams had a sloppy start to the second set, making a few too many forehand errors and missing some sloppy volley attempts. The determined Clijsters had not given up by any means, and kept stroking solidly from the baseline as she had in the first set to claim a 4-1 lead. However, at 4-2 and serving, Kim played a horrible game to let Williams back into the set, making three straight baseline errors to hand Serena a break, and they were back on serve. Clijsters conceded another break at 4-4 with another string of mistakes (forehand wide, backhand wide, and double fault), and Williams served out the match at love. Williams had won the last five games in succession. Make the final 6-4, 6-4.

It was a close match that was finally determined by a few points here and there. Serena's strong serving was a factor, but her greater experience in big matches surely helped as well. Williams is only 18, but the two years' edge in experience showed in the crucial situations. "I'm now old," she joked. "There's a new crop coming in?. I just feel the experience. I feel I can get wins over these younger players." Before we started calling Serena "The Geezer", recall that she is 14 years younger than Nath alie Tauziat!

Williams now readies herself for a Wednesday quarterfinal date with fifth-seeded Mary Pierce, a 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 winner over Elena Likhovtseva on a packed court 3 today. This is in the "stacked" top half of the draw, in which Hingis and Seles are also still alive. The bottom half of the draw was opened up when seeded players Tauziat, Kournikova, Testud, Huber and Coetzer all suffered early round upsets. The only two remaining seeds the lower half are Lindsay Davenport (2nd seed, who has been at least as d evastating as Hingis this week) and Conchita Martinez (6). Lindsay and Conchita will play one another tomorrow, and the other quarterfinal in the bottom half will pit unseeded players Chanda Rubin and Elena Dementieva. We are therefore assured of having an unseeded semifinalist at Indian Wells this year.

I was looking forward to this battle of French Davis Cup teammates with great shotmaking skills. Unfortunately, despite the closeness of the score and the legth of the match (each set lasted close to an hour), the quality was disappointing. The players only showed flashes of their skills ? the odd explosive baseline winner from Escudé, the occasional stylish volley from Pioline ? but for much of the match they unaccountably engaged in static forehand-to-forehand baseline exchanges. And Escudé recognize d that Pioline's poor play at important moments of the match was what allowed him to triumph, more than any genius on his own part. "At the end of the first set and the second set he made a lot of mistakes. It was much better for me."

The poor quality might be explained by the fabled difficulties of playing against a good friend. "It's very hard to play against a French player," recognized Nicolas. "I know Cédric very well. We practice together and we live in the same city. But that's life!"

Escudé is just coming back to the tour after taking four weeks off for the birth of his son. We are happy to note that little Léopold Escudé was born last week! The proud papa will take on the unpredictable Marat Safin in round two: Safin was a three-set winner over Fernando Meligeni today in his first-rounder.