Well, I see why everyone likes this place so much. It’s very pleasant – warm and snug amidst the palm trees and burnished hills looming against the sky. Everyone is relentlessly cheerful. And certainly for the press, there’s a lot more interaction with the players than you usually find at a tournament. That’s because the dining area is a shared space – a strange visual blend of tanned, athletic figures mixed with pale faces and laptop-induced hunches.

So you end up standing there sternly telling yourself that “cheesecake is not lunch,” and then reach the cashier to see Jelena Jankovic in front of you buying just that. Or you’re looking around for something to grab and take upstairs when you remember the appetizing-looking parfait Elena Dementieva was buying yesterday. Digging into it later, you remember that Dementieva withdrew with a stress fracture in her rib the following day, and start to wonder if it really was ‘over-practicing’ after all – the thing has enough cream in it to blow out a lung.

And then there’s this dilemma: do you give up the last cheese and chicken sandwich to a hungry player (Sebastien Grosjean), or just stand there with I-was-here-first stiffness? (Luckily, they had more in the back.)

The tournament only kicked into full gear on Friday. With all the women’s matches involving non-seeds and the men’s still in the qualifying stages the first two days, things were pretty quiet. There were two intriguing comeback stories on Wednesday – Mirjana Lucic (see here) and Guillermo Canas (and here). Thursday was even more sedate, a day of going out to watch Romina Oprandi and squint in the evening sunshine while wondering how someone as pale, blonde and brashly-dressed could possibly come out of Italy. (She’s a good hitter of the ball – both hard and soft – when she reaches it. The “when” is the problem.) Also, going to catch the tail end of Alicia Molik beating Aravane Rezai and wondering aloud of Rezai: “Is that her normal serve or is she having a shoulder problem?”

So the biggest star power during the first couple of days was confined to the pre-tournament press conferences that take place at the bigger events. The WTA has one event with several players sitting at round tables while the ATP brings them in for individual press conferences at different times.

Not sure which is better – it’s more organized with the press conferences and you don’t have to miss anything, but the round tables are more informal and you can lob a couple of off-beat questions out just out of interest.

The Russians got quizzed about the recent story on Moscow’s Spartak club in the New York Times’ Play magazine, including Svetlana Kuznetsova, and it was amusing to watch her face because she was resentful of all the focus on Moscow when she was growing up in St. Petersburg. So, just out of interest, what was the difference? Kuznetsova said she felt like an outsider when she went to Moscow because the atmosphere was a lot more intense, e.g. a father jumping up and down “like a monkey” yelling instructions to his daughter.

Ditto Nadia Petrova, who grew up all over the place and thinks she’s taken longer to develop because she didn’t have proper academy training from a young age like Maria Sharapova and only started training full tilt at 16. Does she feel she’s finally caught up? Nope – still working to catch up. But on the plus side, she has - finally - learned to accept bad days – like the loss to Serena Williams in Australia – and is happy with her current coach after having gone through a few recently.

Dementieva confirmed that she’s bought an apartment in New York. Hingis said she didn’t know she was the seventh most popular news search on Google last year and isn’t much of an online person.

As for Sharapova – forget it, it was standing room only (some quotes here). Only Hingis attracted anywhere near the same crowd. Now here’s a question: wonder how having the pecking order demonstrated so vividly tournament after tournament affects the other players?

Other than Blake’s hole-in-one on the golf course and Andy Murray's new haircut, round robin was the big topic on the men’s side.

Here’s the gist from a player riding on the same shuttle as me Tuesday: some people at the ATP are privately saying that round robin is basically over. He said most of the players never liked the idea in the first place, but went along because the ATP was hell-bent on it and wouldn’t listen to their objections anyway.

The press conferences also echoed the ‘it’s over’ theme. Andy Murray: “Obviously with what happened in Vegas, it’s going to make it pretty difficult for it to continue.” Andy Roddick: “Personally, I think we’ve seen the last of it. I don’t see how you can get around pullouts, going into a match and having to win five games and hit three dropshots to advance to the quarters.” Roger Federer: “I just thought there was too many problems with the whole system, and so I’m happy it kind of arise a problem. And unfortunately, you know, it always takes a few players involved that everybody kind of wakes up.”

The sudden scrutiny was prompted by the decision by ATP chief Etienne de Villiers to override the round-robin rules last week in Las Vegas and hand James Blake a quarterfinal berth at the event. By the letter of the law, it should have been Korolev going through.

The problem began when Blake’s opponent, Juan Martin del Potro, retired in their Thursday round-robin match, activating a subsection of the rules that unexpectedly made Korolev the winner of the group. Had del Potro played and lost another three games, it would have been Blake.

By the next morning, however, the decision had been reversed again and it was Korolev who advanced to the quarterfinals.

So what do the two guys who were at the centre of the storm think?

Blake: “My personal opinion, they shouldn’t be any more. Leave it for the Masters Cup and that’s it. Diplomatically, I’d say, we’ll revisit it, we’ll talk but I don’t want it any more.” Giving his version of events, Blake said he went in [editor’s note: pretty angry] to talk to supervisor Mark Darby to get the rule explained to him and find out why he wasn’t going through. Several officials as well and Blake and his coach were in the room. “It just kind of spiralled into a long discussion and before we knew it, we were on the phone with Etienne.”

Korolev incidentally, wasn't present during the conversation.

After a Russian journalist mentioned that Korolev had told him he was surprised that reporters in Las Vegas hadn’t asked him tougher questions, I thought I’d take another shot at it by tagging along to his post-match press conference [editor’s note: aka his post-match meal in the dining area].

Between bites, Korolev was more interested in talking about ice hockey and making plans to see his “best friend” Sergei Federov when he comes to the region to play the Mighty Ducks next week. (Work out the degrees of separation: Anna Kournikova used to go out with Federov. Anna K. is Korolev’s cousin.)

But before he left to play soccer with Safin and a few other Russians, he did look back on the incident that's increasingly looking the beginning of the end for round robin.

It was a night he’ll never forget, said Korolev – dealing with the round-robin fiasco, and also learning that he’d become an uncle for the first time. In fact, he’s now half-hoping he won’t be selected for the next Russian Davis Cup tie so he has time to go see his nephew after Miami.

Based on Korolev’s account, a couple of factors led to the ATP's change of heart overnight.  His agents and their lawyers were very active in lobbying for him, leaving dozens of messages for officials. In fact, Korolov recalled that he actually had to tell them to calm down at one point. But as they pointed out, Korolev could theoretically sue the ATP for disregarding its own rulebook (though he says he wouldn’t actually have done it).

Then there was the reaction of the players, many of whom who came up to Korolev and commiserated with him. Safin marched him up to the supervisor and argued for about twenty minutes, and Thomas Johansson also voiced his objections. Johansson, like Blake, is part of the ATP player council. Korolev said he also heard that Ivan Ljubcic, the president of the player council, had made a phone call disagreeing with what had been done, and that players in Dubai had gathered to discuss the situation.

The next morning, Korolev got a phone call from de Villiers apologizing for what had happened. Though he no longer seems worked up about what happened, he admitted he was angry enough on Thursday evening to refuse all press requests put to him – only 19 with a long career in front of him he didn’t want to create a firestorm by denouncing the situation as a farce. He told Blake that he wouldn’t have minded if Blake had legitimately qualified instead of him, but it wasn't fair to change the rules mid-tournament.

Would the initial ruling have happened if Korolev had been the one to lose out instead of Blake? No, he said, no one would have done a thing.

And yes, Korolev too thinks this is spells the end of round robin. But he’s not holding any grudges. You could almost see the punchline coming. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”