US Open Stars Drop into Indian Wells Struggling to Draw Crowds


INDIAN WELLS, California — With the young and Daniil Medvedev out of the lottery, this tournament will definitely not be a repeat of the US Open.

Medvedev is very cool and pressure resistant on his way to the first Grand Slam title Last month in New York, the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday looked poised to continue.

He led Grigor Dimitrov in the last 16 with one set and two service breaks. But tennis remains an unpredictable game, and top-seeded Medvedev, like Dimitrov, continued to lose his way in the desert sun, only playing patiently and bravely in the first match. At the right times, he had wins in eight straight games and then remained determined to finish 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 losses.

“It’s impossible until it’s possible, I guess,” Dimitrov said in a television interview.

But if this isn’t the US Open, it’s not really an Indian Wells tournament either. Usually held in March each year, this event has grown in size and size under its own umbrella. free spenderLarry Ellison has become the most popular and prestigious tour stop after four Grand Slam tournaments and year-end tour finals.

In 2019, 475,000 spectators came to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden during the event’s nearly two-week run, filling the stadium courts and the upscale restaurants overlooking them. In recent years, the tournament has generated an estimated annual economic impact of over $400 million in the greater Palm Springs area.

But it was the first major international sporting event held in March 2020. It is cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the end, the decision that was Ellison’s decision turned out to be the right one. While skeptics were skeptical when the move was announced just ahead of the qualifying tournament, other leagues and events soon followed as the extent and threat of the pandemic became clear.

“At first we thought they were crazy because they canceled it,” Krystal Meier, a longtime fan and tournament participant from Long Beach, said in an interview last week. “How could anyone know what was coming?”

This year, BNP Paribas Open, from March to Octoberand while the prize money is roughly the same as in 2019, the star power and atmosphere are not.

According to tournament officials, attendance is on track to be around half of what it was in 2019. The change in history is definitely a factor. Many seasonal residents have yet to arrive in the area, and the regulars who make it a tradition to attend March are clearly not ready to embrace October.

The decision to require all spectators to be vaccinated may have limited overall numbers while reassuring some fans. “When we saw that everyone was going to get vaccinated, we definitely felt better about coming,” Meier said.

However, there are still underlying concerns about attending mass events and traveling too far from home. More than 87 percent of the audience in 2019 were from outside the Palm Springs area.

Another reason for smaller crowds is undoubtedly the changing of the guard in tennis. The tournament is missing the two biggest stars in the women’s game (Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka) and the three biggest stars in the men’s game (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic).

Federer, 40, and Nadal, 35, are recovering from their injuries and announced in August that their 2020 seasons are over. Djokovic, 34, rests and recovers after losing in straight sets to Medvedev in last month’s US Open final, a defeat that stopped him shortly before becoming the first man to complete a singles Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969.

Dominic Thiem, who was the men’s champion here in 2019, also left the field with an injury. He still has a presence at Indian Wells, like other high-profile absents. As a nod to the obvious, the tournament organizers hung life-size images of them all on a wall behind Stadium 2 with the words “We miss you”. He became a magnet during the event with his fans taking pictures alongside the photos.

Posing next to live actors has been much more difficult due to pandemic restrictions, which has meant banning official autograph sessions. (Unofficial signatures still continue.)

None of the women’s singles quarterfinalists in New York made it to the quarterfinals here with the surprise Open champion. Emma Raducanu lost to 100th placed Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the opening match.

The much more experienced Medvedev was better off with a dizzying mix of offense and defense and performed very well against Dimitrov until they took a 4-1 lead in the second set.

But 23 seeded Bulgarian Dimitrov was opportunistic enough to change the momentum. At 30, he has yet to reach the heights that seem like his destiny, given his sleek, all-court game. But he remains a dangerous contender, and after showing flashes of good form at the San Diego Open a week before Indian Wells, he lifted his game Wednesday with Medvedev’s relegation.

“He definitely turned the key,” Medvedev said. “It’s not that I’m starting to miss everything and I really like to play badly. I kept a level though, if we can call it that. It’s enough to finish the game in so many games.”

Once at the rallies, Dimitrov almost exclusively cut his one-handed backstroke throughout the stretch and waited – and waited – to take big risks with his forehand. Most paid off in the final set, taking a 5-1 lead with Medvedev rarely expressing his displeasure, breaking a racket between his first and second serves (he made a double mistake) and continuing to lose his sixth serve. time.

“This shows how slow the court is and how the conditions are more like clay, which I don’t like,” Medvedev said.

Dimitrov soon lost his serve as well, trying to finish the 5-1 blues but failed to falter at 5-3, holding on to love and raising both arms in the air.

Although the sky above it was typical Indian Wells – clear and azure – what was going on in the world was anything but usual.



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