Often referred to as "the fifth Grand Slam", Indian Wells has hosted the best tennis players in the world for two weeks a year since 1987. Located in the Coachella Valley next to Palm Springs it takes place every March, which can already be extremely hot in the California desert and if you're a tennis fan, it's self titled moniker of "Tennis Paradise" is not far wrong.
I have been once before, briefly a few years ago in the comfort of a corporate suite so this time I decided to check it out over the course of a few days and explore everything it had to offer.
The Palm Springs area is known for his demographic of wealthy white retirees and there is certainly a feel of that around the grounds of this tournament.
The tournament has had its share of controversy over the years, most notably in 2001 when the Williams sisters were due to meet in the Semi Finals. When Venus withdrew due to injury there was speculation of family match fixing and Serena was subsequently booed in the final during her entrance onto court, at times during the match and during her winning trophy presentation. Despite the threat of financial sanctions and forfeited ranking points, it took the Williams sisters 15 years to agree to return to the tournament.
Don't let that spoil your appetite for a well rounded blog review.
In these times of rising ticket prices/manipulation and outrageous parking costs in American sports, this tournament provides some welcome relief. First of all general parking is free and you can come and go as you please. The days are split into two sessions, the day session where the grounds open at 10am, matches start at 11am and ends around 6pm - and a night session which includes two main main matches on both "show courts" as well as floodlit matches on the outer courts.
Current world number six, Coco Gauff.
A "ground pass" in the first week will only set you back a delightfully reasonable $30. This gives you access to all practice courts, outer match courts and even Stadium 2 which has a capacity of 8,000. This ground pass also allows you to stick around all day throughout both sessions. In the second week this price doubles to $60 but with everything on offer including a vast aray of foot outlets, live music, merchandise stores and player on-stage interviews is still a bargain in my opinion.
Top 20 men's star, Alexander Zverev.
My first visit was on the Wednesday of week one. This is a great time to go as the first round has begun but most of the seeded players have a bye into the second round. That leaves you with an array of first round matches but also every top player in the world on the practice courts.
Up and coming American hero, Frances Tiafoe.
The practice courts are extremely intimate and give you an opportunity to sit up close to some of the worlds best players. It's also very well organized with a full practice schedule published the day before. I casually found myself on Stadium 9 early in the morning watching the recent world number one, Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz paired in practice with Frances Tiafoe.
I was so close to the action I could hear the two men chatting during a break about which day they arrived, where they are staying and how nice it is to be in the California desert.
Alcaraz is the new great hope of men's tennis now that Roger Federer has retired, Rafa Nadal looks like he's coming to the end and Novak Djokovic at 35 struggles to be allowed into countries due to his lack of vaccination.
Other top players I saw practice included Andy Murray, Paula Badosa, Elena Rybakina, Victoria Azarenka, Andrey Rublev and Matteo Berretini.
The only place not included in a ground pass is "Stadium 1" which is a magnificent arena with a capacity of 16,100 making it bigger than Centre Court at Wimbledon and Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. It's actually the second largest tennis arena in the world behind Arthur Ashe in New York.
Tickets have to be bought separately for this arena and are not cheap. Around $70-$100 for the top tiers and a couple of hundred lower down. However, you can find some bargains on secondary sites like StubHub. I found one for $50 on this day in the lower tier. Probably because it was early in the tournament and the best I could see was an all American clash between John Isner and Brandon Nakashima. A ticket to this court also gives you full access to the rest of the grounds so really I paid $20 over the ground pass price for a nice seat here.
I returned on Saturday night with a ticket for $70 on the front row of the top tier to see Carlos Alvarez under the lights. The weekend evening sessions are usually the busiest and Stadium 1 can drum up a great atmosphere with a backdrop of the sun setting behind the mountains.
I also knew there were some good matches on the outer courts and the legend of John McEnroe playing guitar in a band!
Before the main event I wandered over to my personal favourite, Stadium 9 and saw the end of Daria Kasatkina Vs Tatjana Maria.
I then moved onto the atmospheric Stadium 3 to see the always entertaining Canadian Bianca Andreescu.
At first I actually made my way to the top of the stand to assess where the best viewing spots were. From there I could see down onto Stadium 9 behind me and just happened to see Jelena Ostapenko smash a hard drive straight into the stomach of Marta Kostyuk. Whether it was deliberate or not I'm not sure but Ostapenko can be hilariously controversial at the best of times.
Andreescu then took to Stadium 3 to a large amount of noise from some enthusiastic Canadian fans and also some Romanian, presumably honoring her heritage.
I've been a big fan of Andreescu since a viral clip of her a few years ago comforting Serena Williams on court after the latter had to retire in their match due to injury. Amdreescu, then only 18 is seen crouching down putting her hand on Williams' knee before audibly reminding her that's she's "a fucking beast".
A few months later I watched on TV as the same two players went head to head in the US Open final and was blown away by the dynamic play of Andreescu, the animated screams of "COME ONN" and the ultimate victory.
It's been somewhat downhill for her since then as she suffered with multiple injuries but after some candid mental health admissions and documented spiritual trips to Thailand she seems to be in a good place and is certainly a match for anyone on her day.
On this particular night she came from behind to beat American Peyton Sterns in an entertaining three set match.
Stadium 3 provides a wonderful cramped space for players to leave into the mercy of the general public which provides alot of opportunity for selfies and autographs. On this occasion I refrained myself as I didn't want to injure any children.
I moved on to Stadium 1 which didn't disappoint with a full crowd and the floodlights on.
Alcaraz cruised to a straight sets win over the Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis.
I thought the view from row 1 of the top section would be better than it actually was. This picture above was by leaning forward to see over the roofing. Sat back in your seat you could barely see the baseline. Lesson learnt for future. Still it was incredible to watch Alcaraz in action, a smooth flowing style that suggests he'll be on top for a long long time.
The following Tuesday I managed to combine client meetings in our Palm Desert office in the afternoon with one more taste of tennis in the evening. I was drawn in by the all British line up of up and coming star Jack Draper taking on Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu taking on the world number one Iga Swiatek, both matches in the last 16.
It worked out perfectly as the day session matches over ran so I got to watch a full men's match on Stadium 2, Frances Tiafoe shaking off an early 0-3 start to overcome the Chilean qualifier Alejandro Tabilo.
Tiafoe is an entertaining and popular player who is on the fringes of breaking out into a Grand Slam champion. He eventually lost in the semi finals of this tournament to Daniil Medvedev.
On to Stadium 1 and I treated myself to a seat on row 3 which I had found on StubHub for half its face value. Time for a cheeky ice cream before the action started.
Row 3 was predictably great, located directly behind the coaching teams of one of the players.
The first match didn't last long as Britains Jack Draper was clearly in pain towards the end of the first set and ended up retiring early in the second. At that point he was already heading to a heavy defeat to the irrepressible Alcaraz.
Alcaraz and Draper know each other well off the court apparently and the Spaniard wrote a classy message on the camera at the end of the match "get well soon Jack". If he stays humble and likeable he will be a fans favourite for a long time.
Next up was Raducanu, the highly popular Brit who rose to fame with her stunning victory at the 2021 US Open. Similar to Andreescu she has struggled to capitalise on a first Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadow at a young age and is fighting hard to get herself back into contention.
Up close and personal she is clearly extremely talented but taking on Swiatek is no mean feat for anyone.
The Polish star is not the most entertaining to watch in my opinion. She takes an age to serve, consistently going well over the time limit and received a violation in this match to the applause of the impatient crowd.
She is however the world number one and rightly so. I couldn't help chuckle at the warm up before the match started as Raducanu casually hit the opening ball towards her opponent, who smashed it back at full pace as if to say "I'm here for business" and Raducanu was forced to continue the warm up as if they were playing a third set.
A third set was not something Swiatek needed when the real action started. She made easy work of a Raducanu that looked drained and exhausted and who had been struggling with illness all week.
It was a bad night for the Brits but nothing less than expected as Alcaraz and Swiatek, surely the stars of the game for the next decade and beyond sealed easy victories.
That was it for me at Indian Wells. The final rounds are a tad too pricey and not enough action going on outside the main court to justify a day or night out although you could probably find it at the right price.
My overall opinion on the tournament however is hugely positive. I got lucky with some cooler desert temperatures than usual but will definitely be back in future years. The easy access to superstars, atmospheric outer courts and the visually pleasing setting of Stadium 1 makes it a must for any tennis fan and frankly any general admirer or athletic greatness.
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