INDIAN WELLS — Check out Tuesday’s smashing lineup at the BNP Paribas Open.
It’s four Round of 16 matches from the draw’s 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.
Oh, and did we mention a blockbuster match between two four-time Grand Slam singles champions?
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.
And the tennis-savvy fans here have responded. Friday set a single-day attendance record (58,828) that was immediately erased by Saturday’s crowd of 60,781. Fold in Sunday’s gate of 56,655 and you have a new weekend of 176,264. That’s a lot of sunblock.
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.
One more note: Three of these four matches have never happened before — another great reason to dial into Tuesday’s action.
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka vs. No. 16 Naomi Osaka
Head-to-head: 1-0, Osaka (2018 US Open fourth round).
This potential Round of 16 matchup jumped off the draw sheet before the tournament began.
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.
The matchup was still hypothetical after Sabalenka defeated Jaqueline Cristian.
“I would like to play her,” Sabalenka said, seeming to mean it. “It 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.
Osaka defeats Osorio to set up Sabalenka meeting in Indian Wells
“I think we played only once, isn’t it?”
That is correct. Osaka took that US Open contest eight years ago in three sets. Both players were 20 years old.
“I’ll have a chance to get a revenge, hopefully,” Sabalenka said.
Said Osaka, “For me, it’s really exciting. I have watched her, I don’t want to say `grow over the years,’ 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.”
Eight years is a long time, but Osaka remembers a lot from that match.
“Just because I felt like in that tournament, that was the hardest match for me,” Osaka said. “I remember thinking, like, we’re both going to get very far. So, yeah, obviously I was right.
“It was definitely a really difficult match. It’s really cool to see how far we both have come.”
No. 6 Amanda Anisimova vs. No. 10 Victoria Mboko
Head-to-head: 0-0
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.
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.
Mboko cruises past Kalinskaya to reach last 16 at Indian Wells
“It’s 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,” Anisimova explained. “I think that’s been the biggest shift for me. I think that’s a big thing for myself and just trusting myself.”
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.
No. 7 Jasmine Paolini vs. qualifier Talia Gibson
Head-to-head: 0-0.
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’d zoom to No. 67 with a win.
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
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.
Meanwhile, Paolini was a 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 winner over Ajla Tomljanovic.
“I lost to her in doubles in the Australian Open,” Paolini said, “and I said to [partner] Sara Errani, `This girl is playing really good, serving good, returning good, hitting like really flat balls.’ She beat Tauson, who is also playing really good.
“So it’s going to be a really tough match.”
No. 14 Linda Noskova vs. Alexandra Eala
Head-to-head: 0-0.
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, “it felt like fireworks going off” and growing crowd favorite Eala was declared a 6-2, 2-0 winner.
It was only the second time Gauff retired from a match, going back to 2022 in Cincinnati
Eala, 20 and a graduate from Rafael Nadal’s academy in Spain, is the first player from the Philippines to do so many things. She’ll already be ranked a career high next week, and a win here would put her at No. 25.
Remarkably, Eala now has a 3-3 record against Top 5 players, defeating Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek at Miami 2025 and Gauff. She’s also the first left-handed player to register 10 WTA Tour wins during 2026.
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.
“Linda is an amazing player, very powerful, and even at such a young age, very experienced,” Eala said. “I’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.”
