Today we took some time to make our acquaintance with one of the nicest women on the tour, Fabiola Zuluaga, who is quietly having the best year in her injury-riddled career. We also look in on a looming threat in the men?s draw, Guillermo Coria, who obviously means business at the Pacific Life Open.

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Fabiola Zuluaga (15) def. Laura Granville, 7-5, 6-2
Fourth round
Court 4
Previous head-to-head: Zuluaga leads 1-0

Fabiola Zuluaga?s dream season continues! The 5?8? (1.72m) Colombian -- she looks taller than her listed height -- has already reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and picked up a title in Bogota. The ranking points are piling up even higher in Indian Wells, thanks to the quarterfinal berth earned this morning. After staring down a set point in the first set, Zuluaga regrouped and efficiently closed out the hard-hitting American Laura Granville.

Zuluaga?s only worries came midway through the first set. After the Colombian lost her focus with a 4-2 lead, Granville took the next three games and a 5-4 advantage, breaking Zuluaga twice at love. ?I was trying to hit too hard, trying to play her game,? commented Zuluaga after the match. ?I was playing too quickly, trying to hit winners on the first and second ball, and that?s not my game.?

Granville had a set point at 5-4, but Zualaga saved it by forcing an error with a strong backhand approach shot. A couple of unforced errors from Granville allowed Zuluaga to break serve and level the set at 5-5. The Colombian took over the match from this point, taking the final two games of the first set and dominating the second.

Zuluaga had turned the tide by changing tactics, changing spins and speeds to throw her opponent off stride. ?The beginning of the first set we were playing the same kind of tennis, hitting like flat balls. Then I decided to play some high balls, like I play on clay,? said Zuluaga with a laugh. ?Then she had troubles playing like that. That was the key to winning the match.? Zuluaga knows that her versatility gives her game a dimension that many of the players on tour do not possess. ?I can do differe nt things. Sometimes I was hitting hard, sometimes I was hitting a lot of topspin. And vary the serve, sometimes not hitting it not so hard, putting some kick as well.?

While it?s true that Zuluaga has been playing the best tennis of her life this season, it must be said that her path to success has been at least partly eased by some good fortune. The injury withdrawal of Amélie Mauresmo had given Fabiola a free pass to the semis in Australia. And this week, had Kim Clijsters not bowed out of the tournament with a wrist injury, Fabiola would almost certainly have played Clijsters instead of Granville. Still, even without those bits of assistance, this has been a splendid early season for the Colombian. Ranked 38th at the end of 2003, she will almost certainly penetrate the top 20 in next week?s rankings, reaching a career high. ?Great beginning, huh??, said t he 25-year-old Zuluaga with a laugh.

The pleasant, soft-spoken Zuluaga, who met with us after today?s win, is not as astonished by the quick start to the year as some observers might be. She has some lofty goals. ?Surprised??, asks Zuluaga. ?No, I don?t think this is the word you should use, you know. I practiced a lot during the pre-season, and we were expecting it, you know. I was expecting to do well. I feel like I?ve been playing very good tennis for the last six months.?

Zuluaga, who plans to get married at the end of the season, looks calm and unruffled during her matches. She says that this is an accurate reflection of her personality. ?Yes, for sure. You ask any of the players,? said Fabiola with a smile as she gestured at the bustling players? lounge, ?they will tell you I am so calm and always relaxed.? Zuluaga admits that her easy-going attitude has sometimes been a hindrance to her tennis success. ?Before it was tough for me, you know, to get in the rhythm of the matches, and to get the high intensity. Now, every time I?m getting on the court, I?m thinking, if it?s going to be a two hour match, I?ll do my best for two hours, and then go home and rest a bit. But for those two hours I do all I can. That?s what I?m thinking. And it?s working.?

The success that Zuluaga is now experiencing might have come earlier, had it not been for a serious rotator cuff injury. Not one, but two shoulder surgeries forced her to miss virtually the entire 2001 season. ?I had the first surgery in January, and then the second one in March,? recalls the raven-haired Colombian. ?I started playing again in October. It?s a long, long injury? What they did in the first surgery, my body rejected. About 80% of the people get well, and I was in the other 20%.?

The recovery period at her home in Colombia was lengthy and difficult. ?I did maybe 6 to 8 hours of physio a day. And then, like in May, I started hitting 5 balls a day, 10 balls the second day, like that.? Fabiola also kept busy by taking English language courses at university. She thinks she might be interested in a career in education when her playing days are over. ?Yeah, maybe like with little kids, for sure.? Whatever Fabiola decides to do, she says it won?t involve pro tennis. ?I think if I stop playing tennis, I stop traveling. If you think about it, you spend more time in a plane or a hotel than anywhere.?

Following a stint at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida during her teenage years, Zuluaga has moved back to her native Colombia. She has been working with her present coach, Spaniard Ricardo Sanchez, since the beginning of the 2003 season. ?He was a top 200 player, but he didn?t have enough money to keep playing. It was getting expensive,? laughs Zuluaga. ?He used to coach guys, and now he?s working with me. He used to coach some Spanish players, like [Roberto] Carretero. And Nicolas Massu -- right before he came with me, he was working with Massu.?

Sanchez has told the Colombian press that he has lofty goals for his pupil, whom he thinks has the talent to reach the top eight. Zuluaga assured us that she will do whatever she can to keep moving up in the rankings. ?Every time I go out on the court I want to win now, whether it?s here, a Grand Slam, or anywhere.?

Zuluaga?s quarterfinal opponent will be 19th-seeded Frenchwoman Nathalie Dechy, who is in her first Indian Wells quarterfinal after three appearances in the round of sixteen. Dechy used her accurate, sweeping groundstrokes to pull off the day?s biggest surprise, a 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 upset of 6th seed Vera Zvonareva. Zvonareva played the important points nervously and erratically, and received a warning for slamming her racquet early in the third set.

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Guillermo Coria (4) def. Sébastien Grosjean (13), 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2
Fourth round
Stadium 1
Previous head-to-head: First meeting

Fittingly, the best men?s fourth-rounder of the day was the only one pitting two top-16-seeded players. This was the first-ever encounter between two of the fastest runners on tour, and it saw the more opportunistic and confident Guillermo Coria (pictured at right) come back from a set and a break down to pull one out of the fire.

Grosjean came out of the gate strongly to take the first set 6-3. The French dynamo was lashing penetrating forehands and Coria was on his heels. This pattern continued in the second set, and Grosjean registered an early break. But Coria?s play picked up, and the Argentine broke back to level the score at 3-2 when Grosjean committed a forehand error. Coria admitted after the match that when things looked bleak, he needed to bear down and play more assertively. ?I changed my attitude?, said ?El Mago? throu gh an interpreter, ?and I?m going to concentrate and focus.?

The match turned on the second set tie-break, in which Grosjean gave too many points away. The Frenchman threw in a double fault at 0-1, and compounded his problems with a forehand error at 1-4. Coria took good care of all his service points, and finished with a service winner to take the tie-break 7-2.

Grosjean did not react well to the disappointment in the final set, and, under pressure from Coria?s retrieving skills and pinpoint accuracy, began to accumulate errors. Grosjean was never really in the set after dropping serve in the first game. Coria, with his game now nicely in place, cruised the rest of the way to seal a nice comeback victory.

The stage is now set for an appetizing quarterfinal that will match Coria against the man he describes as his hero, Andre Agassi. Coria feels in top shape here, and is keen to put his hero-worship aside and avenge his loss to Agassi in their most recent meeting, at last year?s U.S. Open. ?I think one of the reasons I lost at the Open was that I was hurt in the thigh. Now I?m fine,? said Coria, adding with a look of determination, ?and I?m planning to win.?

Agassi, like Coria, started slowly in his match with Mikhail Youzhny, and trailed 2-4, 0-40 before firming up his game and winning, 7-5, 6-2. Agassi is aware of the challenge presented by the diminutive Argentine, ?A lot of strengths to his game. Tough competitor. Moves incredibly well, good weapons off both sides. I?ll have to play a good match from start to finish.?

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Women?s quarterfinals are set

The women?s field here is admittedly weak, but the draw still boasts some big names, as well as a smattering of new faces who have produced some excellent tennis to advance this far. The quarterfinals look something like this:

• Justine Henin-Hardenne (1) vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova (12)
  The top seed has yet to lose a set this week, but Justine got her first minor scare this evening. Her determined opponent, Czech teenager Barbora Strycova, took a 4-2 second set lead thanks to some strong groundstroking and daring forays to the net. Henin impressively stepped up her game to eliminate the danger and claim a 6-3, 6-4 win. Kuznetsova, who had looked wobbly in her first two matches, put in a strong performance to trounce Amy Frazier, 6-3, 6-0. This will be a rematch of the fina l in Doha earlier this month, where Kuznetsova inflicted the only loss on Henin?s record this year. ?I like this kind of situation,? said the world number one. ?I like the revenge.?
• Anastasia Myskina (4) vs. Conchita Martinez (11)
  Myskina?s hotly anticipated match today with her young compatriot Maria Sharapova was no contest, as Sharapova imploded and Myskina advanced with a 6-2, 6-1 shellacking. Our ace photographer told me that Sharapova?s ebullient father and coach, Yuri, left the stadium in dismay during the match and did not return. The ageless Martinez loves this event, having reached the semifinals here last year. She had no trouble eliminating Barbara Schett this afternoon.
• Gisela Dulko (Q) vs. Lindsay Davenport (3)
  Lindsay is once again pain-free, and appears in top form. Today, Davenport summarily dismissed a good player, Meghann Shaughnessy, 6-1, 6-3. Dulko?s rapid improvement has impressed many observers here, and her upset second-round win over 7th seed Nadia Petrova was a significant career milestone, but she looks over her head in this matchup.
• Nathalie Dechy (19) vs. Fabiola Zuluaga (15)
  See above.

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Quotable quotes

Roger Federer is known as the most skilled shotmaker in tennis, but he seemed to surprise even himself during his 6-4, 6-1 win over Mardy Fish. Ranging far to his left, he flicked a magical backhand that zoomed outside the net post and landed in play for a clean winner. ?That?s just shots you only do in practice, you know? When it happens in a match, you?re like, ?Oh geeze, this is on TV, in front of all these spectators. This is great.? I would really like to see that one again on replay.?