A Brief History of the 2011 BNP Paribas Open : Part I
This week, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden will be playing host to one of the biggest tennis tournaments outside the four Grand Slams. The 2011 BNP Paribas Open, formerly known as the Indian Wells Masters, will commence in the second week of March. The event
is a highly prestigious tournament, and is held annually in California. It is played on hard courts, and is known as the most-attended tournament in tennis (apart from the Grand Slam tournaments). The Indian Wells Tennis Garden is also famous for being the
second largest tennis stadium in the world.
There are nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events, and The BNP Paribas Open is categorised one of them on the Association of Tennis Professionals [ATP] Tour. The tournament was also a major part of the Grand Prix Tennis Circuit for sixteen years from 1974
to 1990. This event and the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne are the only two tour tournaments to extend main draw competition beyond eight days, with both tournaments lasting 12 days.
The men’s main draw will begin this Thursday, and the final will be held on Sunday in the next week. The men’s singles draw of the tournament consists of 96 players, slotted into a 128-player model. 32 seeds are invited to play at the tournament each other,
and they all receive byes in the first round of the tournament.
Last year, the BNP Paribas Open broke its own record by recording the attendance of a whopping 339,657 tennis fans at the tournament. This surpassed last year’s achievement as well, when the Indian Wells event became the first tournament outside of a Grand
Slam to record over 300,000 fans in attendance.
2010 was a significant year for records at the BNP Paribas Open, with Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia defeating a number of highly-ranked players to reach his title match against American former Number 1 Andy Roddick. The Croation pro managed to defeat Roddick
in straight sets 7-6(3), 7-6(5). With this win, he became the first non-Top 20 player to lift an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy after David Nalbandian in 2007.
Last year’s tournament also featured a number of surprises. Then-World Number 1 Roger Federer lost the tournament in the third round, falling to Marcos Baghdatis in three sets. This was particularly shocking because the Maestro had taken away the title for
the event on three different occasions. Rafael Nadal was also ousted by eventual champion Ljubicic, and lost the chance to defend his title in three sets. He did, however, take away the doubles title with partner Marc Lopez.
The second part of this introduction features the Women’s Tennis Association [WTA].
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