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mich
sarcoline
20 March 2025 @ 11:21 am
tennis paradise 🎾🌴  
to be honest i don’t even consider myself a #real #hardcore tennis fan. genuinely. like im so casual. but i thought it would be nice to organize my thoughts and keep record kinda? as i’ve had the chance to attend the indian wells masters for the past 5-ish years. i tend to go on the first weekend of the tournament, either saturday or sunday, which usually falls on singles round 3 (round of 32) or sometimes round 2 (round of 64), depending on what day of the week the tournament starts that year. i’ll add pictures later if i remember lol.

tldr; the first of two events in the “sunshine double” (the other being the miami open), the bnp paribas open at indian wells is an ATP tour masters 1000 and WTA 1000 event, earning players 1000 ranking points if won (the 3rd most after majors - 2000 points, and year end ATP/WTA finals - 1500 points). lowkey i think this is more tennistv pr than anything but apparently it’s often considered the 5th slam or the “grand slam of the west” as it is the most attended tennis tournament in the world outside of the four majors.



2025 - champions: jack draper / mirra andreeva

SINGLES R3 / DOUBLES R4
lowkey feel like i should’ve gotten tickets for day 8 instead of day 9 because i preferred the lineup (alcaraz, dimitrov, shapovalov, sabalenka) more but this was still a good day of matches! going on weekends has always been more crowded but i don’t think i’ve ever experienced this many people here before…i guess the event does get bigger and bigger each year. 

practice courts: carlos alcaraz, madison keys, qinwen zheng
  • S. TSITSIPAS (8) v. M. BERRETTINI 6-3, 6-3
so nice to see tsitsipas back on top lately (perhaps riding the high of that dubai win), he had really nice serves and his backhand is getting better. i think this match was pretty entertaining despite what the score may suggest. funniest part of the entire game was when berrettini called for var because he wanted to check if tsitsipas crossed the net while returning a shot in the middle of the court and tsitsipas looked so comically offended that he would even think so wdfjslf.
  • D. MEDVEDEV (5) v. A. MICHELSEN (31) 0-2 (walkover)
apparently michelsen has been battling stomach flu (?) for the entire week so they barely played for like 10 minutes before medvedev called for a medic due to nosebleed… and then less than five minutes later michelsen decided to retire. 
  • H. RUNE (12) v. U. HUMBERT (18) 5-7, 6-4, 7-5
both rune and humbert appeared pretty evenly matched for the duration of the event that we watched, i think rune did a decent job of sticking it through despite the first set. his backhand is really nice.
  • J. PEGULA (4) v. X. WANG 6-2, 6-1
jess really made quick work of wang xinyu we blinked and the match was over. 
  • J. CASH / L. GLASSPOOL (5) v. L. DARDERI / G. DIMITROV 6-3, 6-4
lol’d you could really tell darderi and dimitrov were singles players playing doubles as opposed to their opponents (british doubles specialists). my first time watching a doubles match live in a few years so it felt pretty refreshing to see the change of pace—very quick and almost felt like watching table tennis lmao. ofc dimi had to pull out a behind the back return at the net on the first point of the game.. classic. 
  • S. HSIEH / S. ZHANG (5) v.  M. JONES / M. KESSLER 6-2, 6-3
first time seeing the magician hsieh su wei live and it was exhilarating!! she’s definitely stronger up at the net as opposed to the baseline (weaker serves) but her returns and reflexes are genuinely so incredible to witness up-close. they pretty much dominated kessler and jones for the entirety of the first set and half of the second, but i think kessler/jones started to make a bit of a comeback at 4-0 which wasn’t bad for a wildcard team. kessler was the better player by far, i think some of jones’ shot selections were a bit confusing while kessler played consistently with solid returns. 

SINGLES R4 - ROUND OF 16
i had suite tickets for this day so basically ended up staying on court 1 the whole entire day though i did consider taking a look at court 2 when sabalenka was playing. the women’s matches all went to three sets and took over 2 hours while the men’s matches finished in straight sets and under two hours. so it was bad for those who only bought night session tickets, but good for people who had been there all day and wanted to go home a little earlier (me).
  • BELINDA BENCIC v. C. GAUFF (3) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
the disappointment when gauff fumbled the third set was palpable across the stadium, broken from 40-0 at 4-4 was devastating… i think her serves were pretty inconsistent in the last two sets though, despite her fairly decisive first set victory. gauff wasn’t making crazy amounts of unforced errors (only 5 more than the number of winners she hit) but bencic just kept fighting. 
  • M. KEYS (5) v. D. VEKIĆ (19) 4-6, 6-7(9), 6-3
DONNA… i was rooting for you… the turning point of this match was really during the second set tiebreak where vekić was up 5-3 and keys miraculously managed to overcome the deficit, resulting in a frustrated vekić who flung the racket at the court. up until that point i think everyone thought that vekić’s victory was imminent. she was playing quite well with a few entertaining trick shots and disguised drop shots that maybe made up for her slightly shaky serves.  
  • J. DRAPER (13) v. T. FRITZ (3) 7-5, 6-4
ngl a bit of an underwhelming match, fritz was definitely not on his a-game. he wasn’t fucking up too badly either but draper’s serves were monstrous and consistent and he was returning well too. another top 10 seed out of the tournament before quarters is crazy but what can you do…
  • C. ALCARAZ (2) v. G. DIMITROV (14) 6-1, 6-1
ok ok the score looks worse than it actually was. i mean it was a pretty undeniable win but it’s not like dimitrov was playing badly… alcaraz was just Too good. what would usually be winners for dimitrov, alcaraz would manage to save and not only save but return winners. not much you can do in conditions like that. also it got increasingly windy as the day went on, so by the time it was evening the wind was affecting play pretty conspicuously (worse for dimitrov, as alcaraz’s balls typically have more spin and are thus less affected).  


2024 - champions: carlos alcaraz / iga swiatek
somehow missed it this year…?

2023 - champions: carlos alcaraz / elena rybakina

SINGLES - ROUND OF 32 - strangely enough i only have a single photo from this day and it was of rublev LOL. if it were not for that singular photo / my annual iw twitter thread i might have not even believed i went this year. 
  • C. NORRIE (10) v. T. DANIEL 6-7, 7-5, 6-2
looked like daniel actually had a shot up until the middle of the second.
  • C. GARIN v. C. RUUD (3) 6-4, 7-6
top 5 upset again. i honestly hardly remember anything from this match i feel like neither of their playstyles were very captivating. 
  • A. DAVIDOVICH (23) v. K. KHACHANOV (13) 6-3, 1-6, 6-4
after witnessing his loss to shapo last year i went into this not expecting him to win but he steadfastly clung on in the third set despite losing the second 6-1. 
  • A. RUBLEV (6) v. U. HUMBERT 7-5, 6-3
got to hear the infamous rublev BWEHs in person… was definitely an experience. rublev’s playstyle is kind of like the equivalent of bruteforcing code. like it’s just not an elegant process but it gets the job done. 
  • M. SAKKARI (7) v. A. KALININA 3-6, 6-2, 6-4
wanted to catch the second half of this match so bad but i think sakkari just locked the fuck in in the 2nd and 3rd sets and by the time we came out of court 1, i could only watch from the big screen as she put it away dominating kalinina 6-4 in the third.
  • A. ZVEREV (12) v. E. RUUSUVUORI 7-5, 1-6, 7-5
surprisingly did not go to tiebreak every single set… which is usually what happens whenever zverev wins anything at high profile tournaments. 

2022 - champions: taylor fritz / iga swiatek

SINGLES - ROUND OF 64
 
practice courts: nick kyrgios (saw his influencer gf too lol)
  • R. NADAL (4) v. S. KORDA 6-2, 1-6, 7-6
first time watching nadal live and this was truly such an incredible experience. i’m so glad i got to see him play before he returned last year :’) seeing him do his little superstitious rituals was so entertaining beautiful tennis playing notwithstanding. it seemed like korda had a chance to turn things around in the second set being up two breaks.
  • V. KUDERMETOVA (21) v. N. OSAKA 6-0, 6-4
vaguely recall being shocked by how quickly the first set ended… where did grand slam champion naomi go </3
  • D. SHAPOVALOV (13) v. A. DAVIDOVICH 4-6, 6-4, 6-2
finally got to witness a shapo win after last year’s loss. beautiful flying one-handed backhand as always, davidovich-fokina really did scare me with that first set though. i almost thought we were gonna have a repeat of last year 😭
  • J. SINNER (10) v. L. DJERE 6-3, 6-3
got to see sinner before he blew all the way up… not that he was nugu or anything at this point but his popularity definitely skyrocketed after mid-2023. my most lasting impression of him was just how lanky he was… giving medvedev a bit with all his gangly limbs.
  • L. FERNANDEZ (18) v. A. ANISIMOVA 2-6, 7-6 (walkover)
caught the end of this match because we were waiting for kyrgios on court 2… it seemed like anisimova was on track to win the second but after losing four match points despite her 2 break lead, it looked like she became sick before the third set and then rapidly retired amidst the umpire’s protests. 
  • N. KYRGIOS v. F. DELBONIS (32) 6-2, 6-2
stayed later than usual just to catch this one. kyrgios won pretty handily but it was still pretty entertaining iirc he had some banter with the crowd. when he’s on he’s on. lobbed a few underhand serves for jokes iirc.

2021 - champions: cameron norrie / paula badosa

SINGLES - ROUND OF 32
  • D. SCHWARTZMAN (11) v.  D. EVANS (18) 5-7, 6-4, 6-0
short king!! retired earlier last year but truly was a treat to watch how he commanded the court despite his stature. 
  • G. DIMITROV (23) v. R. OPELKA (16) 6-3, 6-4
the first thing i noticed about opelka was how tall he was… he really looked so giant on that court. like he is 211cm and you can tell. especially watching this match right after schwartzman lmao.
  • P. BADOSA (21) v. C. GAUFF (15) 6-2, 6-2
eventual winner of the year! honestly don’t recall much of this match, but badosa is very gorgeous…
  • A. KERBER (10) v. D. KASATKINA (20) 6-2, 1-6, 6-4
iirc i only caught a bit of the last set of this one.
  • A. KARATSEV (19) v. D. SHAPOVALOV (9) 7-5, 6-2
will never forget how i watched this match courtside and witnessed shapo serve 12 aces vs karatsev’s 0 and still lost.. :weibocrylaugh: shapo really has one of the most beautiful backhands of all time and a very elegant playstyle but it is sooo fawking inconsistent. when he kept getting broken in the second set i was like brotherrr its over. 
  • H. HURKACZ (8) v. F. TIAFOE 6-3, 6-2
honestly do not remember much of this one, just that hurkacz was pretty tall and that tiafoe was cheeked UP. yes i know you all follow me for my insightful and riveting tennis commentary.


 
 
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