Indian Wells 1

I was recently in the desert for 3 days at a tennis tournament.  The official name used to be the Pacific Life Open, now it’s the BNP Paribas Open, but to tennis fans it’s always been known as Indian Wells, after the city in the Coachella valley where it’s located.  Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells: the cities in this valley coalesce and are all knit together with 5-lane boulevards filled with shiny, new, high-end vehicles zipping along at 50 mph through immaculate, manicured lawns, gardens, and water features (for a place in the desert, the profligate water use is astonishing), like one gigantic country club, with shopping centers as clubhouses.  Sometimes referred to as the 5^th major, with $3.6 million in prize money up for grabs and attendance of 350,000, it’s the 2^nd biggest US tournament after the US Open and the biggest on the West Coast.  The beautifully landscaped site, with date palms, flower gardens, and nearby rugged mountains that, in the clear, dry air, look close enough to touch, contains 22 courts with the main stadium seating 16,000.  I’ve been going there every year since 2003, and I have to say that, notwithstanding my comments in the Australian Open post about the declining popularity of tennis in the US, it gets more crowded every year.  Of course, it’s an international event, and you hear plenty of languages other than English as you walk around the grounds. 

I’ve always just gone for the early rounds and hung on the outer courts where I can get close to the players (one year I actually collided with David Ferrer), so I don't bother with a ticket for the main stadium but just get a grounds pass.  That gives me access to everything except the big stadium where the players are too distant anyway.  Of course, I don’t get to see many of the top players then, but I’ve already seen most of them, back before they were top players. That’s because I keep my ear to the ground and when I hear about talented players coming up, I make a point to check them out.  For example, I saw Nadal play here years ago and he was only 30 feet away.  He was 18 at the time and playing Nicolas Massu in an outer court where there were only about 50 people watching, and 48 of them were rooting for Massu.  This year I was eager to see the new up-and-comers I’d discovered while watching the Australian Open on TV (see that previous post): Tomic, Raonic, and Dolgopolov. 

I’ve got a routine down by now.  I pick up a cheap Styrofoam cooler at Ralph’s, stock it with ice at my motel, and put bottles of water and lunch fixings in it.  The first matches start at 11, so I usually get to the venue between 10 and 10:30.  Then, at some point during the day, when it’s convenient and I’m hungry, I foray out to the car and have some late lunch/early dinner and grab a couple fresh bottles of cold water.  This way I avoid standing in line for the lousy yet expensive food sold on site.  I still have to stand in line, on occasion, for a $3.50 bottle of ice cold water, at least when it’s as hot as it was this year, because it’s just too far to go to the car every time you need another bottle of water and when it’s really hot (every day hit 90 degrees this year) the tepid water from the drinking fountains just doesn’t cut it.  I try to time my excursion so that it’s late in the afternoon.  That way I can also grab a jacket, because it can get quite cool in the desert at night.  All the courts are lit, so night matches are common. 

The tournament is a big deal for the town of Indian Wells, and all the motels are very aware of it.  The one where I stay has a lot of officials, referees and lines people staying there.  Every morning when you come down for breakfast there are schedules laid out showing all the matches being played that day, and the courts they’re being played on, so you can roughly plan your day (there’s still no telling how long each match will last, so you can’t plan it exactly).  Even without the big stadium, there are still 7 matches going on at any given time, so it can be difficult deciding on an itinerary.  Factored into the decision lately is how popular I think a given match is likely to be, because as much as possible I try to avoid the crowds.

In the early years there weren’t big crowds.  Most of my fondest memories are from that era.  In those days the tournament started on Monday and I could stay through Thursday of the first week and never have a problem getting a good seat for any match I wanted.  But when BNP Paribas took over as the title sponsor in 2009, the schedule was changed so that the qualifying starts on Monday and the first round matches don’t start until Wednesday (women) or Thursday (men).  As a result you soon run into the weekend and the huge crowds that go with it: both Saturday and Sunday this year were sold out.  That means standing in lines for everything, and sometimes not getting into a match you’d like to see, or getting in but having an undesirable seat with someone’s knees pressed into your back.  In the old days I always used to wish I could stay longer, but this year by Sunday night I was ready to go.  

In my next post I’ll share some specifics about the matches I watched.