| Shelby Evans
There are many nicknames for the BNP Paribas Open. It is often referred to by the name of its location, the town of “Indian Wells.” Pundits of the sport highlight its importance by calling it “The Fifth Slam.” Walking from the grass field turned into a free parking lot into the ticketing gate, I walked through an archway under a wall of evergreen leaves and flowers. Cursive lettering cut out against the foliage declares “Welcome to Tennis Paradise.” Self-serving, sure, but that may be the most suitable nickname for this beloved tournament.
The Indian Wells Tennis Garden is located 30 miles southeast of Palm Springs and sits under the shadows of the San Jacinto Mountains. It’s less than an hour from the nearest Joshua Tree National Park visitor center.
With usually mild daytime temperatures followed by cool nights and mountains standing tall behind the bleachers, you look away from the tennis and you can’t avoid seeing nature's beauty, all around.
After two trips to the U.S. Open, I can confidently say that the best time to visit a tennis tournament is during the early rounds, when you can sample the hundreds of matches that need to be played among men’s and women’s singles and doubles.
My mom and I joined close family friends at Tennis Paradise after our four-hour trek from Phoenix. Our friends had already been there for qualifying rounds, and upon our arrival they immediately guided us to their favorite spot accessible with a ground pass. There is a bleacher stand that runs from one end of Court 5 all the way to the other end of Court 6. If you walk up the middle of the bleachers to the top rows, and you aren’t too afraid of heights to sit along the top wall where the guard rails provide great back support, you get a view of two live tennis matches at once.
The classic head nods of tennis fans following a ball seemed all the more exaggerated while we sat there for 5 1/2 hours taking in first-round men’s singles matches to our left and women’s doubles on our right. Sitting behind the baseline we didn’t have to move our heads to track the ball, but we were constantly tracking two matches, and sometimes two rallies at once. This meant nonstop action; when one match went to a changeover, 90 seconds of rest for the players in their chairs when they swap sides of the court, the other court was mid-game with action to follow.
The sun was behind our backs, which meant we missed out on the views of the sweeping mountains. We braved the last row and when I turned over my shoulder not only did I see the peaks straight ahead, if I looked down, I caught the No. 12 ATP player Casper Ruud on a practice court with ATP No. 13 Jakub Menšík.
Top seeds get a BYE in the first round of Masters1000 events [as the 9 tournaments that are one step below the Grand Slams are denominated], so our first-round men’s matches were between a Japanese player ranked 110 in the world and a Kazakhstani player ranked 84th.
The women’s doubles were a little more interesting with the top-seeded Italian pair of Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani playing their first-round match. Court six was crowded and fans bled into our middle ground as they tried to catch a glimpse of the women. Jess Pegula, a top American singles player, partnered up with McCartney Kessler to play doubles. This subverted tennis decorum as some fans sitting near the men's match would clap midpoint because they were reacting to action on the adjacent doubles court.
The next day I embarked on one of the toughest tests of my will. Court 3 is the largest show court that allows ground passes. It’s first come, first served for all the bleachers. The third match was going to be 25-year-old Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime against 39-year-old Frenchman Gael Monfils, aka “The Showman.”
I sat down at 11 a.m. for the first match between a young American and a young Australian with no intention of getting up before seeing The Showman play at least one set during his last year on tour. I was not the only one with this plan; there wasn’t a free seat in the stadium long before the main event.
It was 3 p.m. when the match began. I had rationed my water and eaten one of my two protein bars over the last four hours so that I could be sitting along the baseline to see the fan favorite. Monfils never won a Grand Slam, he was competing against Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in their prime. You didn’t know about “The Showman” unless you really loved tennis. Athletes play under their country’s flag every match they play, but fans' allegiances aren’t always driven by nationalism. A personality like Monfils, the speed and agility of both his tennis and his sense of humor, sharpened over the 20 years he spent on tour, created a reverence for him among tennis fans.
Sitting in Court 3, with beautiful mountains in the distance, French cheers being led from either end of the court, Canadian flags being held up, and an actual stadium-wide wave happening, I was a little dehydrated and definitely more than a little hungry. I then became a little teary-eyed when Monfils lost in the third set, marking the last competitive match he’ll have ever played at the BNP Paribas Open, exiting what is without a doubt our shared tennis paradise.