Best of Three: Indian Wells

Checking in on the women and men midway through what was once the "Fifth Slam"

I came close several times during the first half of Indian Wells to publishing a short dispatch here on Bounces, with several different moments percolating but not quite penetrating all the way to being standalone posts. But I’m decidedly overdue to empty the notebook here, and I think there’s enough small stuff to do a second-ever “Best of Three” round-up here on a trio of topics.

There’s interesting things afoot in both the women’s and men’s side of the sport right now, but let’s start with Indian Wells itself (and please subscribe to read all three items!)

Paradise Lost?

Indian Wells, filtered paradise. (Photo by Ben Rothenberg)

The honorary title of “Fifth Slam” or “Fifth Major” has shifted a few times in the history of the tours. In the 1970s, the consensus “Fifth Slam” was the Italian Open in Rome; in fact, there were several instances where top clay court players played in Rome and then skipped Roland-Garros.

Miami took over the “Fifth Slam” soon after it was created in 1985. Men and women competing side-by-side outside the majors was still rare at that point, and Butch Buchholz explicitly wanted to recreate that package when he created the tournament now known as the Miami Open.

But at some point between 10-15 years ago—perhaps when Larry Ellison bought the event or perhaps when Serena Williams ended her boycott—Indian Wells began to overtake Miami, which was stagnating, in most estimates as the most prestigious tour stop.

Indian Wells drew enormous crowds from across North America, offered huge prize money, and was building out its venue into something that felt nearly on-par with the majors. Indian Wells was perfectly suited for elevation in an era of Instagram and influencers; the backdrops of palm trees and mountains make the place exceptionally photogenic. When Indian Wells adopted the tagline “Tennis Paradise” a few years ago, it was done without a trace of self-deprecation.

It’s subjective, but I think “Paradise” has lost some of its shine in the last few years, despite its steadily growing numbers. There’s a bit of Yogi Berra in this assessment—“nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded,” but it does meaningfully feel like the secret got out about this desert oasis in a way that made it lose its original charms.

Maybe most meaningfully, the thing that made Indian Wells and Miami feel special as ten-day tournaments on the calendar is no longer nearly as special now that Madrid, Rome, Canada, Cincinnati, and tournaments in China have achieved similar sprawl. Instead of feeling like a somewhat special scenic route through March, the “Sunshine Double” now just feels like more molasses in a slowing circuit. With the playing field being leveled, I don’t know that winning an Indian Wells title still feels as prestigious as it did pre-pandemic; the clout of the destination may remain, but not of the trophy.

Also for Indian Wells, the quality of play, especially in the early rounds, remains reliably subpar, owing to the combination of surface and climate that renders so many players discombobulated, as Andrea Petkovic articulated well recently on her Substack, Finite Jest:

Let me go all tennis nerd on you for a minute and break down the conditions at Indian Wells. And why I always thought the nickname “tennis paradise” was sarcastic. For all the years I’ve played there, the unique mixture of dry air, high temperatures, gritty courts and small Penn tennis balls did not become me. There were too many opposites! It wasn’t supposed to work!

The dry air and the hot temperature make the ball fly like a bullet. It barely touches your racquet and already it is gone, gone, gone. Gone with the wind, barely controllable. What in practice gave me a nice depth, every groundstroke landing just in front of the baseline, would change the moment the tension of a match entered my body and the end result was that my shots went long. Too long. Which in turn made me decelerate my racquet head, thinking that gentle guidance will get me the result I wished for, but deceleration makes the ball fly more.

All of this paired with the gritty, slow courts causes a temporary disassociation from reality. The ball flies and is quick and yet you can’t seem to hit winners because once it hits the surface your shot is suddenly emergency broken down. These are two opposite pieces of information your body and mind try to process but, in my case, failed miserably every single time. One information is yelling “quick playing conditions” the other is retorting “you’re dumb, it’s slooow”.

Play at Indian Wells looks better in still photographs than on video. I think this year’s slight surface change might have marginally improved things, but still, unforced error counts seem higher at Indian Wells than anywhere else on tour (I don’t know if the official data exists to audit that theory but I’d like to). Especially at night, conditions can be downright dead, and colder than any other top tennis tournament. All of this means that Indian Wells has produced nowhere near the number of classic matches as other comparable tournaments, which is a shame.

Usually players who make it to the pointy end of the Indian Wells draw have calibrated how to handle things; hopefully this year they’re not undone by unplayable winds as has happened in final weekends past.

[To read the remaining two-thirds of this notebook post, with assessments of what’s going on with the WTA rebrand and the ATP’s current directionlessness, please become a paid Bounces subscriber! Thank you! -Ben]

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