As we gear up for the first tennis Masters tournament of the year, fans will be in for some blockbuster tennis at Indian Wells. Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin del Potro are among some of the big names that have confirmed their participation, and the bottom quarter of the draw this year features all of those players except the World No. 1.
Key Withdrawals: WTA: Serena Williams, who has a knee injury
ATP: Milos Raonic, with hamstring issues
UPDATE: Richard Gasquet has also withdrawn from the tournament.
Here’s a look at how the draw could play out:
First quarter: Andy Murray has it easy
This one all but belongs to Andy Murray. The World No. 1 is right at the top of the draw, and has some strong players in his quarter, among them Spain’s Feliciano Lopez and Roberto Bautista Agut.
But the only big challenges for Murray in his quarter look to be No. 11 seed David Goffin and seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, whom he could meet in the quarter-finals. Both players are on good seasons – Tsonga took the singles title at the ATP250 Marseille Open, soon after winning top honours at Rotterdam – where he beat Goffin in the finals.
Interestingly, Goffin was in 2016 the first player to beat Andy Murray since the Scot secured his No. 1 ranking; that win came at an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi.
With Tsonga’s return to the ATP top 10 – and Goffin’s debut there (the ranking has since dropped), both players will be in strong form. Tsonga progressed to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open this year, losing to Stan Wawrinka, while Belgium’s Goffin lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the quarters.
Goffin, however, has made two finals already this year, a fact that will bolster him going into Indian Wells.
All in all, there does not appear to be any significant threat to Andy Murray well into the tournament.
Murray, given a first-round bye, is likely to play Chinese Taipei’s Yen-hsun Lu in his second-round match, a match-up he will be happy with considering that of the four times the pair have squared off in the past, the now World No. 1 has won on three occasions – most recently at Wimbledon last year, with Murray going on to win the title.
Second quarter: Straightforward route for Stan Wawrinka
The second quarter is headlined by No. 3 seed Stan Wawrinka. The Swiss won his third Grand Slam title last year and has been both fit and consistent, which will worry his opponents. Like Murray, Wawrinka too has not much of a threat in his quarter, and could see Dominic Thiem in the quarters.
Also in Wawrinka’s quarter is the skilled, but patchy Gael Monfils, who is seeded 10th here, and No. 13 seed Tomas Berdych, neither of whom pose much by way of rivalry with Wawrinka.
We can expect Wawrinka to have an easy route to the quarter-finals at Indian Wells, and given his current form, we could expect a blockbuster from the Swiss ace, and very possibly an upset of Murray in the quarters, especially considering Wawrinka’s semi-final performance at this year’s Australian Open, loss notwithstanding.
Wawrinka will meet either Dutchman Robin Haase or Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi in his second-round match.
Third quarter: Underdogs reign, could upset Big 4
Headlined by fourth seed Kei Nishikori, the third quarter features a number of players who have all showed immense potential against the Big 4, but not been entirely successful. Sam Querrey, fresh off his title win over Rafael Nadal at the ATP500 Abierto Mexicano Telcel is in this quarter, as is Nadal vanquisher Lucas Pouille.
Marin Cilic is also in this quarter, with Delray Beach Open Jack Sock, as the 17th seed, receiving a first-round bye in Q3.
Cilic could play either teen sensation Taylor Fritz or experienced campaigner Benoit Paire in his first match, while Nishikori, who has rarely, if ever, been patchy in terms of fitness, up against one of two players who have of late exhibited that trait – Dan Evans of Great Britain, or the mercurial Dustin Brown, who spent most of his 2016 season on the Challenger tour.
This appears to be an easy one for Nishikori until the quarter-finals, but that is when things will start to perhaps get tricky.
Fourth quarter: Heaviest quarter in tennis history? Yes!
To say the fourth quarter is an explosive one would be a sheer understatement. This quarter features, wait for it.... Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin Del Potro, Alexander Zverev, Nick Kyrgios ….and Fernando Verdasco, a perennial thorn in the side of the top 10.
Second seed Djokovic, who is also the defending champion at Indian Wells, a tournament he has won five times in the past, will face his first big hurdle in the Round of 16 or the pre-quarter-finals, where he sees a likely meeting with Juan Martin Del Potro.
The tall Argentine, who has been enjoying a strong return to form after recovering from injuries, last year ousted Djokovic in the first round of the Rio Olympics, and this year was a thorn in the side of the Serb at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel, with the Argentine taking a set off Djokovic before the former World No. 1 returned, only to lose his semi-final to Nick Kyrgios.
Incidentally, Kyrgios is also in this draw, and should Djokovic beat Del Potro, he will immediately be up against Kyrgios, who recently beat him in straight sets.
This draw will see a big battle of the young talent in the pre-quarters, with Kyrgios likely up against teen sensation Alexander Zverev; the younger Zverev last year won his debut ATP Tour level title at only 19 years old, defeating Stan Wawrinka, and has beaten Roger Federer twice.
Kyrgios, on the other hand, has beaten three of the big four on debut against them, the most recent of those Novak Djokovic last week.
The two youngsters – Kyrgios is 21 – have never played on the ATP Tour, but faced off at the exhibition team tennis tournament, the Hopman Cup last year.
Djokovic could face either of these two if he defeats Del Potro in Round 3, which means two tough back-to-back battles for the Serb.
The highlight for fans, here, of course will be the potential round four clash between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, one that we watched at the finals of the recently-concluded Australian Open and perhaps the greatest rivalry in the history of the sport.
That said, however, Nadal does not have an easy course to the Round of 16 – he will face compatriot Fernando Verdasco in Round 3, the same Fernando Verdasco who ousted him at the first round of the Australian Open last year.
Verdasco is a big hitter and recently made the finals of the ATP Dubai tournament with some big matches, eventually going down tamely to Andy Murray; although Verdasco has been known to be a thorn in the side of some of the ATP’s top hitters, it is doubtful he will beat Nadal given the form the former No. 1 has been in of late.
Barring any big upsets, we’re looking at one semi-final between Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka – and the other, for now, could be anybody’s guess. But the tournament itself promises to get off to an absolutely thundering start.
