Only three days of main-draw action have taken place at the BNP Paribas Open–two in the top half–but the men’s singles draw is already in borderline shambles. Here is just one example: either Felix Auger-Aliassime, Yoshihito Nishioka, Laslo Djere, or Miomir Kecmanovic will advance to the quarterfinals.
Auger-Aliassime may be a big name, but he is a mere18 yeas old and just spent the entire month of March playing on clay instead of hard courts. Djere also took his talents (none of which were readily obvious heading into 2019) to the Golden Swing and was almost unknown to anyone except the hardest-core tennis fans before capturing the Rio de Janeiro title from completely out of nowhere (beating none other than Auger-Aliassime in the final). Nishioka is still ranked outside the top 70 in his comeback from a 2017 ACL tear. Kecmanovic, the world No. 130, lost in Indian Wells qualifying a few days ago.
And that is just one example.
Also in the third round are–wait for it–Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Marcos Giron. Ranked 97th, the 29-year-old Gunneswaran had been 3-10 at the ATP level in his entire career and 0-4 in 2019 prior to arriving in Indian Wells. Giron, 25, had been 1-3 lifetime on the main tour. The former college star at UCLA finds himself at No. 2017 in the rankings.
With all of that transpiring, 40-year-old Ivo Karlovic (yes, 40) making routine work of world No. 12 Borna Coric in straight sets barely even made news. Acapulco champion Nick Kyrgios returning to his former self with a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Philipp Kohlschreiber also went largely unnoticed.
At least Novak Djokovic took care business, but even he endured a bit of a scare. The top-seeded Serb trailed Bjorn Fratangelo by a break in the first set and by a mini-break late in the ensuing tiebreaker but ended up prevailing 7-6(5), 6-2. “Survive and advance” is March’s mantra, and it looks like that will be every player’s goal in the desert this fortnight.
Fellow seeds Coric, Kyrgios, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Nikoloz Basilashvili, Roberto Bautista Agut, Alex de Minaur, and Marco Cecchinato were not as fortunate as Djokovic.
Tsitsipas got slammed by Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-2, Basilashvili fizzled out to Gunneswaran in a third-set tiebreaker, Bautista Agut lost to Nishioka 7-6(3), 6-4, de Minaur was stunned by Giron despite dominating the first set 6-1, and Cecchinator got crushed by Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4, 6-2.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect,” Auger-Aliassime admitted. “I definitely didn’t expect to win that way. But I believed in myself, was able to impose my game like I did in the first round (against Cameron Norrie), and that’s it.”
“(There were) a few upsets,” Dominic Thiem, who was one of the lucky seeds on Saturday, understated. “It’s always tricky conditions here.”
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