As tennis heads to the California desert for the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, two dominant forces will take some stopping. Carlos Alcaraz is looking to win his third consecutive title and Iga Swiatek is defending the crown she won in 2022 and 2024 — but plenty of other players go into the first event of the “Sunshine Double” with points to prove — to themselves if to no one else.
From the American men looking to make an impact on home territory to a world No. 1 in search of her serve and the 24-time Grand Slam champion looking for even more, here are the players traveling into the arid landscape seeking a tennis oasis.
Ben Shelton
A weird rhythm is developing in Shelton’s career. He plays big in the Grand Slams, but less big everywhere else. It helps that he knows this better than anyone, but staying in contention to go deep at the majors requires doing well at the other tournaments on the circuit.
Fresh off his semifinal run at the Australian Open, Shelton seemed primed to get on one of those rolls where a player does well at a series of consecutive tournaments. The 500-level events at Dallas and Acapulco were next on his schedule: hard-court events for a hard-court player and pretty easy trips from his Florida home.
Instead, Shelton is 2-2 since Melbourne, with straight-set losses against Jaume Munar in Dallas and David Goffin in Mexico. At this point in his career, Shelton should not be losing matches like those.
He has never been past the round of 16 at Indian Wells and he will want to prove he can do that somewhere besides the Grand Slams. He could get an assist from the resurfaced courts at Indian Wells, which may be faster and more similar to those at the U.S. Open, but he’ll likely have to do what he did last year in the California desert and adjust to being the hunted, rather than the hunter. He’s in line to play Learner Tien, the American 19-year-old who has taken down Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev in recent weeks, in round two.
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Aryna Sabalenka
She reached the Australian Open final, won a title in Brisbane beforehand and is still world No. 1, but 2025 has not been a convincing year for Sabalenka.
She reached the Melbourne showpiece despite some pretty ropey performances, and has lost two of her three matches since her defeat there to Madison Keys. Her serve has looked especially vulnerable, which is always an underlying concern given the difficulties she has had with the shot previously. Before that first Australian Open win in 2023, Sabalenka was serving so many double faults that she brought in biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to help fix it. A dramatic turnaround in results soon followed, but her serve efficiency has dropped off this year. She is making more first serves than this time last year, but she isn’t winning as many points with them.
At Sunday’s MGM Rewards Slam event in Las Vegas, Nev., where Sabalenka played Naomi Osaka, eight-time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi expressed some technical concerns on commentary: “She has changed her toss and put it down a lot, but this year, it looks like it has crept back up a bit.”
Aryna Sabalenka is in search of her first Indian Wells title. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)
Sabalenka has also admitted to lacking motivation in recent weeks. After losing 6-3, 6-2 to Clara Tauson at the Dubai Tennis Championships, she said: “I’m not that hungry on court. I’m all over the place in my thoughts and not consistent. The decisions I’m making on the court are a bit wrong and emotionally I’m not at my best.” The next few weeks in Indian Wells and Miami feel revealing for the trajectory of her season.
Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz
Hobbled with injury and illness, these two may be touch and go until the first ball of the tournament. Fritz won Indian Wells in 2022, but has not been past the quarterfinals since. A California boy, it’s the closest thing he has to a home event. The question is whether his sore right oblique muscle will let him play.
Paul made the semifinals here last year, which means he’s got rankings points to defend. He fell out of the top 10 this week and has been hit with a run of bad luck in February, including a shoulder injury in Dallas, where he was the defending champion, and a stomach bug in Acalpulco that did for a slew of top players.
If his body lets him, he will want to get a season that started off strong — semifinals in Adelaide, quarterfinals in Australia, semifinals in Dallas — back on track to get that number next to his name back to a single digit.
That may not be an easy, given that he will have to make the last four just to maintain his ranking points, but he retired from his first match in Miami last year with an ankle injury, so with some consistency this month Paul should end up in positive territory.
Iga Swiatek
Like Sabalenka, Swiatek’s results have been pretty good overall this year. The Pole is third for points won in 2025, and at the Australian Open she was destroying her opponents until running into an inspired Madison Keys in the semifinal. Even then Swiatek, was a point away from victory.
Since then, she has lost in the semifinals at the Qatar Open, where she was going for a fourth straight title, and then in the quarterfinals in Dubai. Both were convincing defeats, to Jelena Ostapenko and Mirra Andreeva respectively. Against Ostapenko, Swiatek had little opportunity to turn the tide; against Andreeva, she looked a little lost in the face of the Russian’s play, as was a feature of some of her defeats last year.
It’s now nine months since Swiatek’s last title or final, but her remarkable consistency over the past few years — including two titles at Indian Wells — means she remains world No. 2 by a distance from No. 3 Coco Gauff.
The conditions in Indian Wells have been perfect for her, and it feels like an ideal setting for Swiatek to rediscover her form from Melbourne. As it has been at so many events in her recent career, the pressure’s on: she has 1,000 points to defend from her title run in 2024 if she wants to stay in touch with Sabalenka at world No. 1.
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Alexander Zverev
Zverev figured to have a lovely South American sojourn on tap for February, plus a nice week at the beach in Acapulco. With Jannik Sinner out for three months serving a doping suspension, the No. 1 ranking wasn’t a totally ridiculous thing to think about.
He signed up for the clay swing in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Rio de Janeiro, looking to build some ranking points with his clay-court prowess. He won the Italian Open in Rome last year and made the final at the French Open, where he lost to Alcaraz.
Instead, Zverev came out looking flat and lost two quarterfinals from a winning position, against Francisco Cerundolo in Buenos Aires and Francisco Comesana in Rio de Janeiro. Then he ran into Tien in his second match in Acapulco, who relentlessly attacked his forehand until it broke down.
Alexander Zverev lost to Carlos Alcaraz last year, after their match was interrupted by bees. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
So, who is Zverev? Is he a guy who does well at Slams but loses to Franciscos in other weeks? Or is he a hardcore world No. 2 who makes the last weekend whenever he signs up for an event? He will be seeking answers in the desert.
Coco Gauff
How good did Gauff look from October until mid-January? With a grip shift on her serve and a new, more aggressive approach to her forehand, she won the China Open in Beijing, the season-ending WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then the United Cup, the team event ahead of the Australian Open.
In Melbourne, Gauff’s game regressed ever so slightly, which was all it took for Paula Badosa to beat her in the quarters. She has not won a match since, as she adjusts to the changes to her game that she and her team believe will stand her in better stead for the long run.
The February events in Doha and Dubai have never been huge favorites for Gauff, but no one likes to go seven weeks without winning a match, especially the world No. 3. Even players at that elite level thrive on the confidence that only winning matches can provide.
Gauff is going to win many more matches and many more tournaments, but she could really use a win right now — and perhaps a bunch at the Miami Open, which is just down the road from her childhood home in Delray Beach, Fla. Outside of the Slams and the Tour Finals, it’s the title she wants more than any other.
Novak Djokovic
Djokovic can show up to any tournament he wants on roller skates if he really wants to. After winning 24 Grand Slams, he has nothing to prove, especially after he got the better of Alcaraz once more in their fever dream of a duel in Melbourne.
That said, he was last seen in Doha, hobbling through the airport and still suffering from the hamstring tear that caused him to retire after a set against Zverev in their Australian Open semifinal.
He’s planning to play the Sunshine Double even though the next major is on clay, and he’s got Andy Murray flying to California to help guide him through. As great as he is, Djokovic is still trying to figure something out: how much tennis he needs to play to win another Grand Slam title.
The more he plays, the better chance he has to rebuild that aura of near invincibility that has helped him at the Slams even when his tennis isn’t quite there. It pretty much went away at tour events last year, starting with a weird loss to qualifier Luca Nardi in the Palm Springs desert. He’ll likely have to get through Alcaraz again to find it — they are slated to meet in the quarterfinals, just as they did in Australia.
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Maria Sakkari
This might feel like a strange pick — Sakkari has been on the slide for some time — but, having reached the Indian Wells final last year, the world No. 29 could tumble out of the WTA top 50 with an early exit.
That would be some drop for a player ranked in the world’s top 10 as recently as September, and No. 6 in April. Sakkari also reached the final here in 2022, and then the semis a year later. If there’s anywhere the Greek can get going again, it’s the California desert, whose climate and conditions somewhat remind her of home.
Having ended her 2024 season in September because of a shoulder injury, Sakkari is fit again and has spoken about feeling recharged after the enforced break. Now she needs the results to start resulting, to use Naomi Osaka’s phrase, having won just three of her nine main-draw matches since returning in January.
Having struggled with the big expectations around her previously, perhaps Sakkari can benefit from going under the radar for a bit. It’s certainly rare for the finalist from the previous year’s event to enter a tournament with such little fanfare.
Maria Sakkari thrives in the conditions at Indian Wells. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Carlos Alcaraz
With Sinner banned for a few months, can Alcaraz step up and dominate in his absence?
This year, the Spaniard has been good, but not great. He exited the Australian Open with an unfocused performance against Djokovic, but then won the Rotterdam Open, the first indoor title of his career. That was followed by a quarterfinal defeat to Jiri Lehecka at the Qatar Open, where he did little wrong but failed to produce his best tennis on the most important points — something which he has made a hallmark of his career.
And so to Indian Wells, where Alcaraz is a two-time defending champion on courts that have previously felt tailor-made for him. Perhaps that will change with a new surface provider this year, but even so, Alcaraz is a big favorite for the title.
He could do with generating a bit of momentum going into Miami, especially if he wants to reclaim the No. 2 ranking spot from Zverev before Roland Garros. That would ensure that he could not face the returning Sinner until the final — unlike last year’s event, where they met in the semifinals and Alcaraz prevailed in five sets.
Zheng Qinwen
A difficult second album for Zheng? The first two months of the year felt a bit that way for the Chinese player, with her breakthrough 2024 followed by a slump in results.
A niggling elbow injury has been a factor, as has the absence of her coach Pere Riba following hip surgery, but a 0-3 record this year tells a story.
Riba is now back, and perhaps that will provide the catalyst for a change in fortunes for a player who won the Olympic gold medal in 2024, as well as reaching the final of the Australian Open and WTA Tour Finals. Zheng ended the year ranked No. 5, and she lost in the first round of Indian Wells last year so doesn’t come into the event with many points to defend. That lack of ranking pressure could be the perfect opportunity to generate momentum.
(Top photo of Novak Djokovic: Michael Owens / Getty Images)
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