One of the most famous (or infamous?) moments in recent BNP Paribas Open history came in 2023, when Daniil Medvedev announced that the surface is not a hard court.
A self-proclaimed hard-court specialist, Medvedev has nonetheless thrived at the Indian Wells Masters in recent years. In fact, he has not lost in Tennis Paradise to anyone other than Carlos Alcaraz since 2022 and both of his setbacks against Alcaraz have come in the final (2023 and 2024).
Medvedev now finds himself back in the quarterfinals after erasing an in-form Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-0 on Tuesday night. The Russian converted six of eight break-point opportunities and slammed eight aces while cruising in just one hour and 14 minutes.
“I’m happy with my game,” said Medvedev. “It’s not easy to play here. Breaks of serve–of course we still win more [service games] than we we lose–but breaks of serves don’t mean much here. So even when he came back in the first, I was like, ‘try pushing, try going further.’ I managed to raise my level during the match, so I’m pretty happy about it.”
Up next for the world No. 5 is Arthur Fils, who defeated Marcos Giron 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 earlier on Tuesday. Fils is the first player born in 2004 to reach a Masters 1000 quarterfinal (Jakub Mensik, born in 2005, advanced to the Shanghai QFs late in 2024).
“He plays well,” Medvedev responded when asked about the upcoming matchup with Fils. “I watched his matches here; he’s in good shape. In (the) quarterfinals of an ATP Masters 1000 you never get an easy match…. We only played once (Vienna 2023); he was younger, so (it’s) kind of a different matchup right now. I’ll need to be at my best to try to win.”
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.