Spadea Taking Long Road Back

There was a time, not too long ago, when it would have been unthinkable for Vince Spadea to have been in the spot he was in Saturday at the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells.

He was playing on a back court at the Indian Wells Garden complex, just trying to qualify for the main draw of next week’s Tennis Masters Series event. It was twilight, and many spectators at the south end of the court had their backs turned, watching a match on an adjacent court.

And even though he was the top-seeded player in this qualifying event, he had just lost the second set to journeyman Michael Joyce of Los Angeles, whose fading hairline hints at the direction of his career. Joyce, an asthmatic, had served out the set only after calling for a trainer before the game because he was having trouble breathing in the desert air.

The Spadea of 1999, ranked No. 20, wouldn’t have been anywhere near this spot. But then, the Spadea of 2000 wouldn’t have had any hope of winning the third set.

So when Spadea came out firing in the third, closing out the first game with two aces and never looking back on his way to a 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 victory, it said a lot about which Spadea is showing up these days on the tour. He is ranked No. 55 and would have made the field of 64 automatically had the entry deadline here not been six weeks ago, when he was in the 70s. He needs a win over No. 92 Magnus Norman today to qualify for the tournament, which begins Monday.

Spadea began the 2000 season with 17 consecutive losses. He finished the year 3-28 and his ranking fell to 250.

“It took me six months just to get back to No. 140,” he said Saturday.

There seems to be no explanation of his long fall. The best he could offer Saturday was the example of Joyce, who isn’t even in the top 220.

“He is tough, all these guys are tough, there just are no easy matches,” Spadea said.

*

Saturday’s announcement of the men’s draw stirred an immediate buzz.

Among the first-round matches will be No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt against Younes El Aynaoui, the Moroccan who in January knocked Hewitt out of the Australian Open in the fourth round, then was part of an unforgettable quarterfinal against Andy Roddick, won by the 20-year-old American after the longest fifth set -- 21-19 -- at a Grand Slam event in the open era.

Roddick drew unseeded but dangerous Thomas Enqvist, a Swede once ranked as high as No. 4. Andre Agassi drew Marcelo Rios, the temperamental Chilean who was briefly at No. 1 in March 1998.

Michael Chang, on his year-long farewell tour, drew another former No. 1 player, Carlos Moya. And the popular Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, three-time French Open champion, drew the popular and fascinating Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, the 2001 Wimbledon champion who, at 31, is trying to come back from a serious shoulder injury.