The first stage towards the United States of America is about to arrive. In a month, the first 1000 tournament of the season will begin in the United States: Indian Wells, officially called the BNP Paribas Open. Given the importance of the tournament, all the top ten on the men’s circuit could not be missing.
The first seed is Novak Djokovic, who is registered but the unknown remains: from now on, as he has not been vaccinated, he will not be able to enter US soil, whose state of emergency will end on May 11. They are followed, in ranking order, by Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev.
Next up, seeded number six, is Rafael Nadal: in Indian Wells he could return from his Australian Open injury and have a chance to avenge the final he lost last year. Speaking of finals, the number eight seed is defending champion American Taylor Fritz, who triumphed last year against the Spanish number two.
The tournament, which runs from March 8 to the March 19 final, has yet to award its wild cards. There are also no surprises in the women’s draw at the Indian Wells tournament, with Iga Swiatek in the lead; followed by the brand new Grand Slam winner and new number two in the world, Aryna Sabalenka.
Australian Open finalist Elena Rybakina is the number 10 seed, while Italian number one Martina Trevisan is number 24. Djokovic trains in Marbella with the ATP 500 in Dubai in his sights and attentive to what may happen with the American tournaments.
Nadal is still in the process of recovering from the injury he suffered at the Australian Open.
Patrick McEnroe on Rafa Nadal
Patrick McEnroe recently spoke about Rafael Nadal‘s dominance over Dominic Thiem in the opening games of the 2019 French Open final.
“I went over to the French (Open) basically as a fan. There was a year that Rafa played Thiem in the final, and Thiem was playing great. I mean, he had a great clay-court season, we were all thinking, ‘This guy can win a Major, the French would be the best chance’, of course he went on to win the (US) Open,” Patrick McEnroe said.
“I mean that’s how good Rafa was, and like you said, on clay, because of the extreme spin that he has, you can see, it’s easier but he has been able to dominate,” the 56-year-old said.
