The BNP Paribas Open heats up — Quotes from Indian Wells
By Joey Dillon
The IX: Tennis Tuesday with Joey Dillon, March 11, 2025
Howdy, y’all and Happy Tennis Tuesday! We’re officially into the second week of the BNP Paribas Open and the tennis in the California desert is heating up! Our Sweet Sixteen is as follows:
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(1) Aryna Sabalenka vs. (LL) Sonay Kartal
(6) Jasmine Paolini vs. (24) Liudmila Samsonova
(3) Coco Gauff vs. (WC) Belinda Bencic
(5) Madison Keys vs. (19) Donna Vekic
(7) Elena Rybakina vs. (9) Mirra Andreeva
(4) Jessica Pegula vs. (23) Elina Svitolina
(8) Zheng Qinwen vs. (18) Marta Kostyuk
(2) Iga Swiatek vs. (15) Karolina Muchova
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way this draw has unfolded is the prime example of how strong and consistent the top of the women’s game is. After No. 11 seed Paula Badosa withdrew before her opening match, the remaining Top 12 seeds have all advanced to the fourth round. A few of the fourth round surprises are players I would consider otherwise. Belinda Bencic is one of the in-form players after capturing the WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi and Elina Svitolina reached the Australian Open quarterfinals. Donna Vekic also had a great 2024 that included an Olympic silver medal and Wimbledon semifinal. The “odd woman out” is Sonay Kartal, a rising star who is making most of her lucky loser status:
Before we go into predictions of how the rest of the tournament will unfold, I want to note a few items that put me on notice — both good and bad.
One of my biggest question marks entering Indian Wells was how Madison Keys would hold up in her first play since capturing her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open. Indian Wells isn’t a place Keys has fared particularly well, where she has only advanced to the quarterfinals once. She was in great form to start, dropping only three games in her second rounder over Anastasia Potapova. However, her third round against Elise Mertens became a near three-hour battle after she squandered a 6-2, 5-3 (and multiple match point) lead. It was a bit of an ugly road to get to her 14th consecutive win, but the fact that she was battle-tested and emerged victorious against a player that has gotten the better of her in America is a good sign moving forward.
Last year, Coco Gauff lost to Maria Sakkari in the semifinals and was able to get straight-sets revenge against the Greek in the third round. That’s good news, right? Well, she hit six double faults in the last game, on top of the 21 she misfired in her first match. The Gauff serve has been getting a bit of attention because it’s the first shot to go and then the rest of her game starts to crumble. The poker face when the going gets tough is something I would like to see from Gauff moving forward. Gauff’s opponents have a free ticket to the show when she gets tight and while it’s positive she’s been able to adjust and win, the players she’ll be facing moving forward will pounce on any opportunity.
No. 2 Iga Swiatek is trying to become the first female player to win a third Indian Wells title and she’s been ruthless thus far, dropping four games in her two matches. Top seed Aryna Sabalenka didn’t have a great run in the Middle East, where she went 1-2, but she’s yet to drop a set as well and seemed to find the form that brought her to No. 1 in her destruction of Lucia Bronzetti in the third round. My favorite matchup of the fourth round is between 2023 champion No. 7 Elena Rybakina against No. 9 Mirra Andreeva, who is coming off her big WTA 1000 title in Dubai. Rybakina can win against anyone on any day, but her off-court drama has been the story as of lately, while Andreeva is riding very high on confidence. If you had to choose one match, circle that and grab some popcorn.
Many thought Indian Wells grabbing a new court surface provider in Laykold would speed up the courts quite a bit, but to me, they’re still playing a bit slow. The windy and sandy conditions in the desert will always reign supreme, so we’ll see how things unfold. As for predictions, like always, take with a block of salt.
Round of 16
(1) Aryna Sabalenka def. (LL) Sonay Kartal
(6) Jasmine Paolini def. (24) Liudmila Samsonova
(WC) Belinda Bencic def. (3) Coco Gauff
(5) Madison Keys def. (19) Donna Vekic
(7) Elena Rybakina def. (9) Mirra Andreeva
(4) Jessica Pegula def. (23) Elina Svitolina
(8) Zheng Qinwen def. (18) Marta Kostyuk
(2) Iga Swiatek def. (15) Karolina Muchova
Quarterfinals
(1) Aryna Sabalenka def. (6) Jasmine Paolini
(5) Madison Keys def. (WC) Belinda Bencic
(7) Elena Rybakina def. (4) Jessica Pegula
(2) Iga Swiatek def. (8) Zheng Qinwen
Semi-Finals
(1) Aryna Sabalenka def. (5) Madison Keys
(2) Iga Swiatek def. (7) Elena Rybakina
Final
(2) Iga Swiatek def. (1) Aryna Sabalenka
We’ll see how things roll out in Indian Wells, but I think the court speed favors Swiatek most out of all of the players. I noticed a stat that Swiatek’s title drought is the longest since she won her first event in 2020, and this is only her ninth tournament since Roland Garros last year. Even though she doesn’t need to based on her first two matches, she has a draw that will allow her to play into form but the same could be said for Sabalenka. I’m hopeful that my two semis come to fruition because those would be blockbuster matchups followed by a final worthy for a WTA 1000. Keep those fingers crossed, y’all!
On to links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
Led by Victoria Azarenka and endorsed by new mom Belinda Bencic, the WTA and PIF have announced a groundbreaking maternity leave policy that will offer assistance to fertility treatments and paid leave.
This week’s must-read is about the Bud Collins Media Award winner, Matt Van Tuinen. Van Tuinen has been the PR mastermind behind the BNP Paribas Open and recently came out with his ALS diagnosis.
Newly-minted Top 100 player Maya Joint didn’t see a future with support from the USTA, but she’s lucked out with the gamble she took with Tennis Australia.
A big area of improvement for Madison Keys has been her movement, and the catalyst behind that has been former NFL player Reshard Langford.
Dubai champion Mirra Andreeva (armed with coach Conchita Martinez) is being touted as the WTA’s future, but runner-up Clara Tauson is beginning to get on fans’ radar
Marketa Vondrousova shared she will be out for a few months with a shoulder injury, while Sloane Stephens had to withdraw from Indian Wells due to a foot injury:
Gabriela Dabrowski opened up about her cancer journey, the WTA rebrand and more in an interview with Tennis Channel.
Tennis’ anti-doping system continues to make headlines for their lack of consistency.
While the American women are determined to take back Indian Wells glory, many have signed up for the Credit One Charleston Open including reigning champion Danielle Collins.
While the U.S. Open is ruining mixed doubles, Indian Wells is continuing a second-week mixed doubles tournament to help their nickname as the “Fifth Grand Slam.” Roland Garros has also shared that they will be opening their mixed doubles to all ticket holders, not just those for center court:
In college tennis news, Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M ($100,000) and Amelia Horner of UC Santa Barbara ($40,000) were awarded with the Universal Tennis Foundation Hurd Awards to help fund their professional tennis dreams:
Columbia’s Malak El Allami was profiled by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association as part of their Women’s History Month coverage.
Makenna Jones was on the verge of cracking the doubles Top 100 before a shoddy court at a WTA 125 event caused a torn ACL. She’s been on the comeback trail and received an Indian Wells wildcard as she’s a new local and won her first WTA 1000 match.
Danielle Collins has collaborated with richsport to debut some merch off of her infamous Australian Open interview:
A chair umpire from the Dominican Republic has been suspended for six year and fined $6,000 after being found guilty of breaching the sport’s anti-corruption program.
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Tweet of the Week
Well done by the BNP Paribas Open content team:
Five at The IX: BNP Paribas Open Week 1
Q. First of all, congratulations. In Melbourne you said that you recall that you had a light-bulb moment where you realized you could be real nervous and yet you won and yet you could play good tennis. You also said that you realized that your self-worth wasn’t dependent on your winning, and that’s why you won. Could you talk about the process, that light-bulb moment, and how things changed for you.
MADISON KEYS: I think there was just a lot of kind of being honest with myself and kind of talking through things, and I think the tough part and the beauty of having to have just really honest conversations with yourself, because I think a lot of times you don’t really know why you kind of feel that way or what’s going on. But I think just kind of trying to do some introspection and peel back the layers, you start kind of piecing things together.
I think for whatever reason, for a long time, I just had this notion that top players and the players that were winning the big tournaments just somehow are able to kind of turn off their nerves and just not have to deal with them. And I don’t know why I had that thought or where I got that from, but that’s just kind of how I thought things went.
So for me, when nerves would finally start happening, it was an immediate kind of panic of, well, now I’m not going to be able to play well because people can’t win with these feelings. And again, I don’t know why that came into my head, but it just kind of took talking through things to finally figure it out, and then just a lot of work. And it’s been, I mean, over a year of kind of working through things and getting more and more comfortable on the court, working through that.
So I know for a lot of people it kind of seems like it all kind of happened and it came together, but even through last year, there were a lot of really tough matches where that was something I was actively trying to work on and work through.
Q. You became the face of Carol’s Daughter last year.
COCO GAUFF: Yeah.
Q. How has that process been like, showing sort of what you can do with your hair on court, especially in sport where for Black girls like sweating and getting your hair wet can be such a thing?
COCO GAUFF: Yeah, like, yeah, I mean, I have natural hair, so it’s very tough sometimes to manage, but one of the things I pride myself in is changing my styles. I get a lot of talk about it in the locker room about how I change a lot.
I don’t know. I think hair is so versatile, especially black hair can be so versatile. For example, like this, I had three styles with just this hairstyle literally at the Oscars. I had three different looks with this hairstyle.
I think that’s just something that’s fun about hair that this was kind of the foundation of it, but I could add some to make into the bun I had at the Oscars and then change it to the ponytail for the Vanity Fair and now wear it for braids for when I was playing.
That’s one of the things I pride myself in. I love to play with colors, with textures, I love curls, I love it all. Partnering with Carol’s Daughter has been such an ease, because they actually help me experiment with more styles.
I have always used Carol’s Daughter since I was young, so it was cool to be able to be in partnership with a brand that I already know and love. And, yeah, I’m very thankful for them. They helped style my hair alongside Dhairius for the Oscars and Vanity Fair.
So basically every hairstyle that I have done, pretty much Carol’s Daughter has been behind it over the course of the last year.
Q. From your multiple perspectives as a tennis player, long-standing member of the player council, and knowledge of other successful American sports leagues, wondering if you can say a few words about the WTA rebranding, what you see as the process, potential, and your expectations for it.
JESSICA PEGULA: I think it’s nice to see a little refresh. It shows that I think we want to kind of take advantage of the era that we’re living in as far as women’s sports really, not just tennis, but I feel like having a big jump this year whether it’s basketball or soccer or anything like that. I think it’s kind of been the moment a little bit the past year.
So I think it’s nice to see that we’re kind of refreshing it, rebranding, kind of trying to take like the initiative in that sense of us being the top women’s sport. It doesn’t just come from just the players but I think telling their stories as best as we can. We’re so lucky that we have an international sport where you have all these different types of stories of different players from all over the world.
I think that’s kind of the message they’re really going to want to send and connect with those fans and take advantage of all the amazing athletes that we have on tour.
I think as far as a rebrand, it’s just a nice refresh to grab people’s attention and kind of launch into maybe a little bit of a new era for the WTA and for women’s sports.
Q. What would you say is the biggest key to the growth you’ve had so far this season, the fact you’ve been able to win your biggest title. Is it mental, psychological, or more physical on-court stuff?
MIRRA ANDREEVA: I think it’s all together, because, well, if you’re talented but, you know, you’re not very strong mentally, you’re not going to — I think that you’re not going to be at the top. If you’re amazingly strong mentally but, I don’t know, you’re not super talented and maybe you get, I don’t know, you get nervous at some important points, you know, I don’t think that you can be, like, at the top of the top. So I think it’s all together.
For me I have been working so hard on being strong mentally. Also we’ve been working with Conchita on improving my tennis, you know, at the baseline, my serve, volleys. I think the hard work paid off.
You know, of course we’re going to continue working and getting better. But I would say that for me, I have been working on everything super hard, and I would say that all those three aspects combined, I think that was the key for me.
Q. As a new mother, what are your thoughts on the maternity leave initiative announced today by the WTA?
BELINDA BENCIC: Well, of course I think it’s a great thing. It’s absolutely giving players the chance to not have to make such a hard decision. I think it makes their decision a little bit easier if they are looking for having a family and didn’t have to decide so much if it’s worth it.
Especially the lower-ranked players, I think it’s important for them to have a guaranteed income so they don’t have to worry about money when they’re out for a year and a half and not stress about things.
So I think it’s a great thing. Also, you know, that tennis is the first sport to do it for female athletes, so I hope it paves the way for other sports, as well.
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
| Wednesdays: Basketball |
| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The Next |
| Thursdays: Golf |
| By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX |
| Fridays: Hockey |
| By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden |
| Saturdays: Gymnastics |
| By: Lela Moore, @runlelarun, Freelance Writer |
