Covering tennis is not like anything else in sports journalism. If it is a big tournament, and the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells is a big one, it can make for the longest days in the business. Like, 11 to 11. For more than a week.

If you love tennis, then, this is a great thing to be doing. It’s tennis, tennis and more tennis. Often on multiple courts.

The Mothers of All Tennis Tournaments are the four majors — the Australian, the French, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, in that chronological order. Talking here about full draws of 128 players, men and women. And in the first week, there are games everywhere.

The BNP Paribas Open is designated a World Tour Masters tournament, meaning it’s a big deal. Purses of $4.5 million for singles competition (including $700,000 to the winners, $350,000 for the runners-up), 96-player draws, men and women, and doubles tournaments, as well.

Thing is, you have to be ready for a long day.

I was here in the morning to see Vera Zvonareva make the women’s semis … and I’m still here at 9:30 p.m., now watching second-ranked Dinara Safina of Russia play a Belarus teen I’m not sure I’d heard of till today, Victoria Azarenka, who is ranked No. 11 in the world.

They’re at 5-5 in the first set … and we’ve got another entire match to go, here at the stadium court. Rafael Nadal vs. David Nalbandian. We could be here till midnight. Easy.

A person might be tempted to leave before the Nadal match — if you’d seen him play often enough that it was no longer a rush — but he is 0-2 in his career against Nalbandian. Go figure. Nadal owns Roger Federer (13-6 all-time, including four straight), but Nadal never has beaten Nalbandian.

So we need to hang around for that.

In addition, we’ve got the Web now, and it never has a deadline. So we can update stories when that match finally ends.

Anyway, yeah, if you’re a tennis aficionado, this is great gig. I’ve seen Federer, Roddick, Djokovic, Zvonareva and Safina in person, and will see Nadal. Eventually.

If you’re not a tennis zealot, then it’s just one really long day,  with lots of results, scads of interviews and way, way more notes than you can hope to use.

I think all sports writers should try it at least once. It won’t be something they all would hurry to do again, but for the fraction who love tennis … they could do this every day for two weeks and not regret a minute of all those 12-hour days.