INDIAN Wells, Calif. — Thirty minutes before she walked out to a full-throated crowd in Stadium 2, Iga Swiatek strolled quietly through the growing darkness across the players’ warmup pitch. But when two small children spotted her, they chanted, “Iga, Iga, Iga!”
The night before a WTA 1000 main draw begins is usually a sleepy affair on site, but on Tuesday the BNP Paribas Open was alive.
This was the Eisenhower Cup, a fast-paced “Tie Break Tens” mixed doubles exhibition featuring some of the game’s biggest stars. That included reigning Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina and Taylor Fritz, the defending champions, seeking the winner-take-all $200,000 prize, with 8,000 in attendance and all proceeds going to charity.
“I think it’s nice to play, first of all, with the guys also, and it’s nice to try also the courts,” Rybakina had said earlier. “We both play kind of aggressive, and we have big serves. Yeah, it’s just generally fun.
“Also, Taylor, he knows [the] guys, so he will give me some advices on the return, which is really difficult to return guys’ serves. Hopefully, we can defend our title.”
After a rock, paper, scissors throw-down to determine who serves first, the winner is the first team to 10 (by two). Your semifinalists after four rollicking and raucous quarterfinal matches:
Amanda Anisimova and Learner Tien vs. Mirra Andreeva and Alexander Bublik, while Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud took on Fritz and Rybakina
For final results, see below.
Unreal run for Townsend
As the mother of a four-year-old son, Taylor Townsend is a busy, busy woman. Factor in the fact that she’s turning 30 next month and you’d think she’d be trying to conserve energy at all costs. But consider the blur of the past nine days in Townsend’s life:
She won four straight singles matches in Austin to reach Sunday’s final — the first WTA-level championship match of her career — against Peyton Stearns. Townsend lost a thriller, 7-6(8), 7-5, but came back to win the doubles final with Storm Hunter.
But because her singles ranking was too low (No. 119 going into Austin, No. 87 coming out), Townsend had to play qualifying at Indian Wells. The day after the Austin finals, she defeated Joanna Garland 6-4, 6-4. On Tuesday, she dispatched Akasha Urhobo 6-0, 7-6(5) to advance to the main draw.
For those of you counting at home, that was 11 extraordinary matches in nine days. After an actual day off, Townsend faces Marie Bouzkova in a first-round match on Thursday.
Practice makes perfect
The BNP Paribas Open makes it a point to highlight player practices, so even with the second round of qualifying underway, the numerous practice courts drew enormous fan support.
While Rybakina, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic drew oohs and ahhs on the Stadium 1 court, perhaps the most passionate fans were crowded in front of Practice Court 11, where Jaqueline Cristian was playing points against … Alexandra Eala, the sensation from the Philippines. Eala, 20, reached the semifinals in Miami a year ago. She started 2026 by reaching another semifinal in Auckland, and is coming off a second WTA 1000 quarterfinal appearance in Dubai.
Wild, wild West
The wild cards are, of course, headlined by seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams. US Open champions Sloane Stephens (2017) and Bianca Andreescu (2019) are also in the field. Lilli Tagger, a terrific 18-year-old Austrian up-and-comer coached by Francesca Schiavone also got the nod, along with Donna Vekic, Alycia Parks and Katie Volynets.
But perhaps the best story belongs to Jennifer Brady, the 2021 Australian Open finalist.
She reached the third round here in 2019, and returns after a seven-year absence in the desert. The pandemic decked play in 2020, then Brady suffered a series of knee injuries that required multiple surgeries and kept her off the Tour for 27 months.
Now ranked No. 805, the 30-year-old returned to action in January with a semifinal result at an ITF event in San Diego.
‘Something really unique’
Leave it to Jessica Pegula, the recent champion in Dubai, to put the mixed-doubles event in context.
“I think we have seen that over the last couple of years as all these mixed doubles events have come out that it is a great way for fan engagement,” she told reporters. “I think it’s, if not the only sport where men and women are playing against each other on the same court. I think that’s something that’s really unique about our sport and something we should keep embracing.
“I think you see different personalities come out with different pairings. You see who meshes well together, who doesn’t, and just a different aspect of our sport, which again, is just having the men and women both socializing, working together, competing against each other on the same court is something so rare in sport.”
Fritz, the 2022 champion here in singles and Rybakina, the winner one year later, ultimately prevailed over Americans Anisimova and Tien 10-7. Serving impeccably in the thin desert air, they defended that title. Ironically, it was Fritz — always self-critical of his volleying — who won it with a back-hand volley winner.
Will we see the same stuff from Rybakina in the tournament proper?
“Well, I hope so,” Rybakina said. “I’m super, super happy. And hopefully I can do the same in singles.”
