INDIAN WELLS — Check out Tuesday\u2019s smashing lineup at the BNP Paribas Open.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s four Round of 16 matches from the draw\u2019s top half, featuring four Top 10 seeds — two of them playing each other: No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 6 Amanda Anisimova, No. 7 Jasmine Paolini and No. 10 Victoria Mboko.<\/p>\n
Oh, and did we mention a blockbuster match between two four-time Grand Slam singles champions?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The quality of the desert field is virtually unparalleled. This edition of Indian Wells is the first non-Grand Slam to feature each and every one of the Top 35-ranked players on WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz in four decades.<\/p>\n
And the tennis-savvy fans here have responded. Friday set a single-day attendance record (58,828) that was immediately erased by Saturday\u2019s crowd of 60,781. Fold in Sunday\u2019s gate of 56,655 and you have a new weekend of 176,264. That\u2019s a lot of sunblock.<\/p>\n
Youth, that traditionally slippery slope, has been served. Half of these players — Alexandra Eala, Linda Noskova, Talia Gibson and Mboko — are 21 or younger. Gibson, a 21-year-old Australian, is the only qualifier left in the draw.<\/p>\n
One more note: Three of these four matches have never happened before — another great reason to dial into Tuesday\u2019s action.<\/p>\n
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka vs. No. 16 Naomi Osaka<\/p>\n
Head-to-head:\u00a01-0, Osaka (2018 US Open fourth round).<\/p>\n
This potential Round of 16 matchup jumped off the draw sheet before the tournament began.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka has won her first two matches here in no-fuss straight sets, while Osaka was extended in her third-round match against Camila Osorio before winning 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.<\/p>\n
The matchup was still hypothetical after Sabalenka defeated Jaqueline Cristian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to play her,\u201d Sabalenka said, seeming to mean it. \u201cIt would be for sure a fashion show at the beginning. Then a crazy match. She’s a great player. Came back after pregnancy. Incredible shape. I have been watching her matches, really admire her.<\/p>\n
Osaka defeats Osorio to set up Sabalenka meeting in Indian Wells<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we played only once, isn’t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
That is correct. Osaka took that US Open contest eight years ago in three sets. Both players were 20 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ll have a chance to get a revenge, hopefully,\u201d Sabalenka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Said Osaka, \u201cFor me, it’s really exciting. I have watched her, I don’t want to say `grow over the years,\u2019 because I think she’s only a little bit younger than me and I feel like an old person. But yeah, I have watched her grow over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight years is a long time, but Osaka remembers a lot from that match.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because I felt like in that tournament, that was the hardest match for me,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cI remember thinking, like, we’re both going to get very far. So, yeah, obviously I was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a really difficult match. It’s really cool to see how far we both have come.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 6 Amanda Anisimova vs. No. 10 Victoria Mboko<\/p>\n
Head-to-head: 0-0<\/p>\n
Anisimova was a lights-out 6-1, 6-1 winner over No. 25 Emma Raducanu on Sunday. It was over in 52 minutes. This was the form that carried Anisimova to back-to-back Grand Slam finals last year.<\/p>\n
After losing her opening set here (7-5, to Anna Blinkova), Anisimova has dialed in and lost all of three games in the last four sets.<\/p>\n
Mboko cruises past Kalinskaya to reach last 16 at Indian Wells<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more so just a mindset that I try to go into and things I try and focus on and really commit to what I’m doing,\u201d Anisimova explained. \u201cI think that’s been the biggest shift for me. I think that’s a big thing for myself and just trusting myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mboko is already 13-4 this year after reaching the final in Doha, where she beat Jelena Ostapenko, Elena Rybakina and Mirra Andreeva before falling to Karolina Muchova. Mboko was a 6-4, 6-1 winner over No. 23 Anna Kalinskaya in the third round.<\/p>\n
No. 7 Jasmine Paolini vs. qualifier Talia Gibson<\/p>\n
Head-to-head: 0-0.<\/p>\n
Gibson, the last qualifier left in the draw, has enjoyed a dramatic rise this year. The 21-year-old from Australia began the season at No. 118 in the PIF WTA Rankings, but three wins here have vaulted her to No. 85. She\u2019d zoom to No. 67 with a win.<\/p>\n
She has already produced terrific victories over No. 11 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and No. 17 Clara Tauson. The 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-4 win over Tauson on Sunday went more than two-and-a-half hours<\/p>\n
Gibson has won 14 of 19 matches this year, with 12 of them coming at the ITF level. Her 21 aces here are second only to Clara Tauson.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Paolini was a 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 winner over Ajla Tomljanovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost to her in doubles in the Australian Open,\u201d Paolini said, \u201cand I said to [partner] Sara Errani, `This girl is playing really good, serving good, returning good, hitting like really flat balls.\u2019 She beat Tauson, who is also playing really good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s going to be a really tough match.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 14 Linda Noskova vs. Alexandra Eala<\/p>\n
Head-to-head: 0-0.<\/p>\n
There might have been five Top 10 seeds in play, but No. 4 Coco Gauff retired from her third-round match with a painful left arm injury. She said, \u201cit felt like fireworks going off\u201d and growing crowd favorite Eala was declared a 6-2, 2-0 winner.<\/p>\n
It was only the second time Gauff retired from a match, going back to 2022 in Cincinnati\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eala, 20 and a graduate from Rafael Nadal\u2019s academy in Spain, is the first player from the Philippines to do so many things. She\u2019ll already be ranked a career high next week, and a win here would put her at No. 25.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, Eala now has a 3-3 record against Top 5 players, defeating Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek at Miami 2025 and Gauff. She\u2019s also the first left-handed player to register 10 WTA Tour wins during 2026.<\/p>\n
Noskova, 21, is another in a long line of gifted players from Czechia. She was a three-time finalist last year, in Tokyo, Beijing and Prague. Noskova was extended to the maximum by Sorana Cirstea in the last round, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLinda is an amazing player, very powerful, and even at such a young age, very experienced,\u201d Eala said. \u201cI’m excited. My first fourth round in Indian Wells, so I’m going to go in with a good preparation and a lot of motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIAN WELLS — Check out Tuesday\u2019s smashing lineup at the BNP Paribas Open. It\u2019s four Round of 16…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-514457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}