Best of Three: Ending Well in Indian Wells

On Mirra Andreeva, Jack Draper, and a tennis media desert in Indian Wells.

Three parting thoughts from 2025 Indian Wells…

Teen Queen and Her Royal Advisor

Mirra Andreeva first bubbled up onto the WTA consciousness when, as a 15-year-old wildcard, she beat two top-20 players to reach the fourth round in Madrid. That arrival, it’s hard to believe, is still less than two years ago.

Andreeva, now 17, has steadily floated up the rankings ever since, like a balloon filled with something made to defy conventional gravitational limits.

When she won Indian Wells on Sunday, her second consecutive title at the WTA 1000 level following last month’s win in Dubai, Andreeva established herself as a plausible pick for the very best player in women’s tennis right now. By taking out No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals and No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the final, Andreeva became just the third player in WTA history to beat the Top 2 en route to a title before her 18th birthday. The other two? Serena Williams and Steffi Graf, the two women with the most major singles titles in the history of professional tennis.

That stat—and many more like it—make it easy to get carried away by this soaring balloon. We don’t know what the future holds, but this moment is something to savor and behold.

The most impressive part of the match for Andreeva, I think, was how badly it started for her. Andreeva had gone a combined 0-for-11 on break points against Sabalenka in their previous two matches, and missed out on four more break point chances as Sabalenka took the first set 6-2 on Sunday. The frustration looked cumulative, and Andreeva launched a ball into the sky after losing the opening frame.

But rather than spiral, Andreeva reset. Even after she missed three more break point chances in the opening game of the second to worsen her break point success against Sabalenka to 0-for-18, Andreeva came at it. And once she finally converted on lucky No. 19 in the very next game, she unlocked and broke three more times in the third set to ultimately run away with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory.

Andreeva is up to No. 6 in the rankings with her win, and No. 3 in the race behind Madison Keys (whose Rybakina-Svitolina-Swiatek-Sabalenka run in Melbourne was improbably repeated by Andreeva in the last four rounds of Indian Wells) and Sabalenka. Andreeva is 18-3 this season, and two of the three losses had come against Sabalenka, a hurdle she just overcame today (the third was an outlier against Rebecca Sramkova).

In the short term for 2025, Andreeva has already had good runs at both the French Open and Wimbledon in her young career, so there’s reason to think she can be in the mix at the year’s three remaining majors.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing for this balloon’s chances of success is the steady, grounding hand holding the tether: Conchita Martinez has been a great coach in women’s tennis for years now after finally getting a chance. Andreeva’s success with Martinez should hopefully encourage more players, young and old, to tap into the fonts of wisdom that exist in the often overlooked population of past WTA players.

One more thought on gravity: what is Indian Wells trying to accomplish or prove by having a trophy that’s routinely too heavy (largely because of its unwieldy shape for a 37-pound object) for its female champions to lift? Surely being able to be hoisted is an obvious design requirement for a trophy?

Jack Draper (and Jank Drapery)

The men’s final wasn’t nearly as compelling as the preceding women’s match, but it capped off a thoroughly impressive week for Jack Draper.

Draper wasn’t challenged as he rolled 6-2, 6-2 over Holger Rune in just 69 minutes on Sunday to consolidate his new spot in the Top 10 with his first Masters 1000 title, but he had to overcome a variety of hurdles to make it to that home stretch. His very first match at Indian Wells was against the It Boy of Tennis in 2025, Joao Fonseca, and Draper dispatched him with a bagel, 6-4, 6-0.

Draper then had to win three straight matches against Americans at the often jingoistic venue, handling the very different challenges of Jenson Brooksby, Taylor Fritz, and Ben Shelton. Draper then survived a roller coaster against Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinals, 6-1, 0-6, 6-4.

Ultimately, Draper had the sort of run that should make a lot of those guys he beat feel better about their losses, particularly Fritz and Alcaraz who have had underwhelming starts to the year compared to their abilities. Fonseca too, but he already managed to cheer himself up with a win at the loaded Phoenix Challenger on Sunday, pushing himself up 20 more spots into the Top 60.

Draper is a tougher one to read for immediate success, if only because expectations should be very moderated for him on clay. Draper went 0-6 against Top 50 opponents on clay last season, then lost in the first round of the French Open to 176th-ranked Jesper de Jong. On grass and hard courts he can do some big things, but the winning might dry up for a bit once the courts need occasional watering.

I originally started writing more here about the scourge of matching-outfit matches, which Draper-Rune was, but decided to break that into a separate article you’ll see soon. The thrust: it makes for avoidably bad television, and tennis is long overdue for a rule preventing it.

Silent Semifinal Exits

Alcaraz hadn’t made it to the semifinals of a Masters 1000 event since Indian Wells last year—which goes a long way toward explaining why he’s behind Alexander Zverev in the rankings despite having two major titles in his column. Alcaraz and Zverev could both really use big results in Miami if they are to make anything of top-ranked Jannik Sinner’s absence from the tour during the last gasp of this hard court season.

The semifinal losses that intrigued me more, though, happened on the women’s side. Swiatek grew more visibly frustrated than I’ve ever seen her during her loss to Andreeva—you likely saw the viral video of her spiking a ball in anger that went somewhat near a ballboy (though not as close as I think the video angle made it look). And Madison Keys’ 6-0, 6-1 loss to Sabalenka was an utterly stunning way for her 16-match win streak to crash land; Sabalenka was one game away from a shocking double bagel before Keys got on the board at the final chance.

I would have been very curious to hear how both of those players would have reacted to those losses, and the sorts of questions they might have faced (Swiatek in particular given her uncharacteristic emotions). But the two star players were not requested for post-loss press conferences by whatever media was in Indian Wells. I don’t know how many reporters were there that night, or why they choose not to have the players come in, but to me it’s sadly not entirely shocking. The tennis beat, unfortunately, has too often gone under-covered in recent years, and particularly when it comes to covering the women’s side.

[Update: Swiatek released a lengthy statement on Instagram Monday addressing her on-court emotions.]

Since I know there’s a lot of curiosity about this topic, I will have more soon—on NCR and hopefully on Bounces as well—about how the sausage gets made, or not made, in tennis when it comes to press conferences.

As you can probably surmise from the above, I wasn’t in Indian Wells this year. Bounces income isn’t yet near the point where it could cover a full-tour travel schedule (and I decided to try something slightly off the beaten path by going to the preceding event in Acapulco instead this year). It will take more than just me to bolster the tennis media presence to get it to where I think it needs to be, but if you want to help me do my part for more of this season and beyond, and to add more events to my calendar, I’d very much appreciate anyone whose been considering it becoming a paying Bounces subscriber.

Many thanks, and thanks for reading! -Ben