Rybakina, Alcaraz showcase at Indian Wells 2023

Major event organisers work to make sure that they are globally appealing. The weather and the aura of the venue only provide the platform, what makes an event appealing is the skill levels good players bring with them. Unfortunately, on a rough count, up to 30% of the matches do not provide the nail biting skill based suspense. Organisers pray for good performances from the players for their event sake. For this reason, players cannot fail. Their performance must contribute to the event.

American visionary Charles

Paserell, a Puerto Rican, started the Indian Wells event, five decades ago. It happened after he played one of the longest tennis matches in Wimbledon history. This match lasted over five hours, against legendary American Pancho Gonzales. Probably, this experience must have provided the vision to promote tennis to be appealing. Paserell has done extremely well with Indian Wells event, all he had was Californian desert sand. Today it is an ATP 1000 event with big pay packet to all its participants. An appealing spring tennis carnival in Mojave Desert, California.

Rybakina of Kazakhstan

She is young and when she first appeared as a junior in the tennis scene, she was a Russian. Even now, she resides and trains in Moscow with a citizenship in Kazakhstan. An imposing figure of beauty and strength, she in the last two years has enhanced her physical ability, technical and tactical leads and skills. In Indian Wells, she beat world number one Iga Swiatek and another top five player Sabalenka in the final to win Indian Wells title in 2023. The final had the nail biting suspense event organiser’s pray for. Her win over world’s number one Swiatek and Sabalenka sets platform that could boost women’s tennis popularity to the days of Steffi Graff, Navratilova, Justin Hennin, Maria Sharapova and William sisters.

Rybakina won the Wimbledon title in 2022 and was the runnerup in Australian Open to Sabalenka this year. Her tennis will be the strongest challenge of WTA 2023. I saw her reach full-blooded wide crosscourt of the Sabalenka and hit a down the line winner on the run with killer venom. Others who are good prospect for WTA tennis of 2023 are Sabalenka, Swiatek, Garcia, Sakari, Pegula a big prospect, Linnette of Poland, Teichman of Switzerland, Kudermetova and British teenage surprise Raducanu. The all court play of Raducanu with ability to play winners from unexpected situation are attractions of modern Tennis. Raducanu lost to world’s number one Swiatek in the round of 16 in Indian Wells.

Djokovic saga

The infamous Corona spell has eased. However, in Indian Wells, it claimed the participation of Djokovic this year too. It was a vaccination issue.

WTA

Of recent, in WTA tennis many one timers appeared. WTA tennis did lose top end crowd pullers and had no anchor to stabilise its global popularity. We have to hope Swiatek, Sabalenka, Rybakina, and few others will sustain WTA tennis momentum. The final of Indian Wells, was about the best tennis we saw from WTA segment in a long time. A classic from the beginning to the end.

Men’s – Carlos Alcaraz of Spain

Winning Indian Wells for Alcaraz was not a fore gone conclusion. He was in the injury list and did not participate in the Australian Open. In California, he conducted his tactical, power play with a game speed that others could not match. In the final be beat Medvedev. The match was a total annihilation. This did surprise me. Medvedev had just pulled off a hat trick, winning Dubai, Rotterdam and Doha. He had nothing to stop Alcaraz crushing him. The semifinal win of Alcarz over Tiafoe of USA had better level competitive appeal than his final against Medvedev.

Alcaraz is current ATP world number one. He is a second-generation Tennis player. His father has a ranking of 40s in the ATP in his best days. Alcaraz just turned 18 and got his driving license. He is that young.

Men’s tennis is bound to get interesting again. Federer has retired. Nadal is no more the man we knew. [I do not know why he is persisting] and Djokovic is not high in the fan popularity list and I cannot see where he could take his game to be tennis-appealing]. One of the claim by critics on Djokovic is, in trying to bring spectators to his side Djkovic intimidates his opponents excessively and plays unfair. These are not sportive.

There are good many men in the list of prospective top ten of ATP. Tsitsipas went into injury spell again and lost in the second round in Indian Wells. Others who can win any event from the ATP ranking are Ruud, Aliassime, Rublev, Sinner, and Musetti.

Bopanna of India

Bopanna a reputed doubles player was the oldest winner at the age of 43 in Indian Wells. A creditable feat. Indian focus on doubles and their success rate is on the rise.

--George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA and ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880-