Men’s single play begins at BNP Paribas Open

Men’s main draw singles play in the 2013 BNPParibas Open will begin today at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden with 16matches, while the first round of women’s singles play will conclude.

Like in the women’s draw, all 32 seeded men’s players received first-round byes. Play is set to begin at 11 a.m. with four matches. The lone men’snight match will pit American Ryan Harrison against Go Soeda of Japan.

In women’s play, the oldest player in the 96-player singles draw, 42-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan, will face 28-year-old Galina Voskoboeva ofKazakhstan. Americans Madison Keys and Melanie Oudin will meet in the nightmatch.

Wednesday’s winners included Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, who reachedthe tournament’s final in 2007 and 2008, and Mallory Burdette of Jackson, Ga.,who needed to win two qualifying matches to reach the main draw.

“At the start of the match, I was able to get the break quite early asshe made a few mistakes, but then I was a bit slow and I gave her the chance toget into the match,” Kuznetsova said after her 6-3, 6-1 victory over AndreaHlavackova of the Czech Republic.

“But then I started to play my game again and move better and I managedto control the match after that.”

Kuznetsova was second on the Women’s Tennis Association’s rankings in2007, missed the second half of the 2012 season because of a knee injury andfell out of the top 80 earlier this year. Reaching the quarterfinals of theAustralian Open helped her rise to 46th.

“I’m happy to be back — this is the main thing,” Kuznetsova said.”Every day I just try the best I can and things are coming along pretty well.I feel really balanced within myself, which is important, and I actually havemy dog here in Indian Wells, which is great.”

Burdette defeated fellow American Jill Craybas, 6-2, 6-1, in 59 minutes.

“Today’s match was awesome,” said Burdette, a 22-year-old formerStanford star who turned pro after reaching the third round of last year’s U.S.Open.

“I felt good going out there on the court because I had already playedtwo matches there in qualifying and in that stadium once, so I think it was agood thing I had those matches under my belt. There weren’t a lot of nerves outthere. I knew what to expect.”