Tournament officials at the BNP Paribas Open announced more wild cards on Friday. On the men’s side, Reilly Opelka has joined the main-draw field along with Nishesh Basavareddy and Tristan Boyer. Learner Tien and Joao Fonseca already have wild cards for the season’s first Masters 1000 event in Indian Wells.
Opelka was going to use a protected ranking to get into the main draw, but he can save it for a tournament in the future now that he has a wild card for Indian Wells. The 6’11” American missed almost two full years due to injury but is in resurgent form this year. Opelka was the runner-up in Brisbane and a quarterfinalist in Dallas.
Basavareddy is a Newport Beach native and former Stanford standout, so he will be a fan favorite in Palm Springs. The 19-year-old American has been one of the tour’s breakout stars this season. He advanced to the Auckland semifinals as a qualifier and took a set off Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open.
Boyer has a lot of similarities with Basavareddy, even though he is four years older. The 23-year-old hails from California native (Altadena), is a Stanford product (although they were never on the same team), and is an Australian Open breakthrough performer. Boyer qualified for the main draw at Melbourne Park and advanced to the second round.
Tien, the 2024 NextGen ATP Finals runner-up, reached the fourth round of the Aussie Open after upsetting Daniil Medvedev. The 19-year-old American also beat Alexander Zverev in Acapulco to secure a quarterfinal spot at that ATP 500 tournament.
Fonseca, the 2024 NextGen ATP Finals champion, defeated Andrey Rublev in straight sets in Melbourne. The 18-year-old Brazilian remained red hot with his first ATP title in Buenos Aires.
On the women’s side, additional wild cards went to Belinda Bencic, Sloane Stephens, Alycia Parks, Bernarda Pera, Robin Montgomery, and Iva Jovic. They join Petra Kvitova in the field.
Main-draw competition in “Tennis Paradise” begins on Wednesday.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.