Annika jumped into Poppy’s Pond 3 times

I first attended the LPGA’s Kraft Nabisco media day in Rancho Mirage where I got to play the Dinah Shore Championship course (and not very well, I might add). That was after interviewing golf’s first major of the year’s defending champ Sun Young Yoo and Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam who won this tournament 3 times. Annika was on Skype from her home in Florida and she’ll be this year’s Pro-Am host the week of April 1 and she talked about not being motivated to ever make a comeback to competitive golf and how she loves this course. Yoo’s english is even better than it was last year when I had the priviledge of introducing her onto the 18th green on Sunday before winning her first major title.

Annika Sorenstam talks retirement and why she’s content with her life now:

KNC defending champ Sun Young Yoo can’t wait to try it again:

Azarenka serves in front of a nice late night crowd in the desert

After a full day at the golf course, I then headed up the road to Indian Wells to catch the night matches at the BNP Paribas Open where world #2 and defending champ Victoria Azarenka put away her 3rd round opponent Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium in 3 sets. Azarenka is a great quote as she just speaks her mind and often says things that makes you shake your head. So check out our post match interview where she says not feeling great made her prefer sleeping over playing tennis on this night but she fought through it anyway. And she’s the only athlete I’ve ever interviewed who told me that ‘confidence is OVER-RATED’! Whatever works, Victoria. Azarenka hasn’t lost a match yet this year and is right behind only Serena Williams in the WTA world rankings. I then watched the aging Aussie Lleyton Hewitt (former world #1) lose in straight sets to journeyman Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.

Azarenka (on the left) says goodbye to another opponent

Victoria Azarenka speaks and you can’t help but want to listen:

Hewitt serves before heading home

All in all it was a full day and now I get to drive 2 hours towards home past midnight trying to figure out why I did this whole ordeal? 🙂