Indian Wells Recap

Indian Wells has wrapped up—the first half of the Sunshine Double has found its 2023 champions in the forms of Carlos Alcaraz and Elena Rybakina. There wasn’t much to write home about during this tournament, save for a few upsets.

First things first, I love watching Jannik Sinner play. I really decided to tune into his matches over this tournament. He’s a new favorite player of mine. I think he has a lot of talent, but his skills have not yet formed into a complete player. He needs to work on improving his first serve percentage—low 50s just doesn't cut it—but he has one of the best ground games on the tour. I predicted he would beat Taylor Fritz before their match!

Speaking of Taylor Fritz, I don’t really know why he’s not doing well this year. He has plenty of strong tools. His forehand and backhand are both strong shots, and his serve is one of the best on the tour. He’s both aggressive and consistent with his serve. I think he will find better results in Miami or in the grass season.

Daniil Medvedev is great fun to watch. I’m not surprised he lost the title to Alcaraz, but I do wish he had put up more of a fight in the final. I actually really like his slam chances this year (not the French).

Aryna Sabalenka played very poorly in the women’s final. She made too many errors and double faulted far too many times; I’m not going to say she handed Rybakina the trophy, but she did not demonstrate her best tennis in that final. I will once again say that Sabalenka has the highest peak on the WTA tour, but she has trouble accessing it.

On the topic of Rybakina, I thought Swiatek was injured while watching their match—her movement was significantly worse than usual. I hope this injury doesn’t affect the rest of her season too significantly. Regardless of injury, Rybakina is just a bad matchup for Swiatek. I think the key to the Pole’s 2023 season will be figuring out how to handle the Kazakh’s aggressive game.