Culture
Tennis court surfaces and speed: How Indian Wells fits in with ATP and WTA Tours
Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, illness decimated the Mexican Open in Acapulco. Elsewhere, Stefanos Tsitsipas’ new racket gave him a boost and a court surface change provoked a ruckus.
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What a new court means for tennis in the desert
Tennis court conditions are complicated: they will feel faster or slower for different players and playstyles, and atmospheric conditions and balls can make the same court play very differently. One thing not in dispute is that the speed of the courts at Indian Wells, Calif., is always a talking point, and that speed is always slow.
This year, things might look different after BNP Paribas Open announced a new surface provider on the eve of the event. A press release from the event over the weekend outlined that Laykold, which also makes the courts for the U.S. Open, had been given the contract.
Indian Wells has traditionally been one of the slowest of the big hard-court events, and has remained so across a general quickening in hard-court surfaces across the ATP and WTA tours in the last few years. The move could quicken things up in California, as happened at the Miami Open when it switched to Laykold in 2023.
For some players, this will be a relief. World No. 6 and former U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev has been vocal in his criticism of the surface, as well as the slower, heavier tennis balls about which many players (mostly on the ATP Tour) have complained in recent times.
“It’s a disgrace to sport, this court,” Medvedev said in an on-court rant during his last-16 win against Alexander Zverev two years ago. “We should be banned from playing here, a freaking disgrace to sport, this freaking court. And they call it hard courts. What a shame to call this awful court a hard court.
“I’ll go to toilet, but I don’t care, give me time violation. I’m going to be as slow as the court again. I don’t care; give me five time violations, I’ll go in one minute. If they allow us to play on such a court, I can allow myself to do whatever I want.”
Last year’s champions, Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek, thrive on the slower, higher-bouncing surface, where the grittiness makes the conditions play distinctly differently from most other hard courts, even before accounting for surface speed. The tournament’s change in surface comes in the wider context of a debate about whether a perceived general slowing down of conditions is damaging the sport, and whether or not making hard courts play more similarly is not the gain it might appear. Medvedev’s dislike (despite him making the final in Indian Wells the past two years) and other players’ love for the surface is, in one way, a display of the benefits of having distinct surfaces across events. With tennis itself getting more and more similar, homogenizing courts will only decrease the variety the sport can offer.
The intrigue in the desert this year will be over who will be the big beneficiaries and losers from the changed conditions.
GO DEEPER
Surface mastery: How Alcaraz won Grand Slams on hard, grass and clay courts
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Were reports of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ demise little more than a racket?
It didn’t really seem plausible that Tsitispas was going to drift out of the elite neighborhood of the sport to which he has committed his life. Or did it?
The evidence suggested that Tsitsipas could not hang with the next generation. Not just Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz, either. Arthur Fils beat him in Basel. Alex Michelsen beat him in the first round in Australia. Hamad Medjedovic beat him in Doha last month on an injured leg.
He seemed unable to figure out how to summon the same fight he had rarely lacked during his seven years of playing top-level tennis. Worse, he didn’t know where he might find it. Perhaps the answer was in his strings all along — just some different ones.
Tsitsipas, who has been testing out a blacked-out racket reminiscent of a Babolat Pure Aero 98, finally made some headway last week, playing his best tennis in nearly a year to win in Dubai. His single-handed backhand once more sent the ball exploding off his strings. His touch was soft when he needed it to be. In the final, he beat Felix Auger-Aliassime, who has been putting together a solid bounce-back season of his own. When it was over, Tsitispas was the owner of his first hard-court title since Los Cabos in the summer of 2023 and back in the top 10.
Stefanos Tsitsipas’ racket is stencilled with the Wilson logo to comply with his sponsorship contract. (Christopher Pike / Getty Images)
What this means for the future is unclear. The tour now heads to the U.S., where Tsitsipas has rarely enjoyed much success. He didn’t have to beat any of the highly touted young guns in Dubai and Indian Wells has not been a happy place for him, despite its (former) conditions suiting his preference to move around his backhand. But it’s safe to say that — like the knight from Monty Python — he’s not dead yet.
Matt Futterman
Will more returning WTA players follow Belinda Bencic’s lead?
There was a welcome return in Austin last week for Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion, who is back from a 17-month hiatus on maternity leave. She lost to Jodie Burrage of Great Britain in her first match back but was competitive throughout. Kvitova has been given a wildcard to play in Indian Wells this week.
Beyond that, it will be interesting to see how Kvitova, 34, manages her schedule in the coming months, and whether she, and other returning players, will try to copy what Belinda Bencic has done.
Belinda Bencic made waves at the Australian Open, knocking out world No. 3 Coco Gauff. (William West / AFP via Getty Images)
Bencic, a former world No. 4 and Olympic champion, returned to tennis at the end of October after a 13-month hiatus of her own, during which she gave birth to her first child. She has since had exceptional results at the start of 2025, reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open and winning the Abu Dhabi Open, a 500-level event. Significantly, though, Bencic didn’t go straight into playing these big events. Her comeback began last year with low-level ITF and Challenger events, away from the main WTA Tour.
“For me, it’s kind of logical,” she told The Athletic in December, having just played that run of lower-level tournaments. “I cannot be as arrogant to expect to not play for a year and a half and then come back to the same level that I played before and expect to be able to have a competitive match. So it’s important that I can go to the lower level to also build everything up again and see where I’m at.
“I don’t see the point of going to a tournament like, I don’t know, Indian Wells. You have a difficult draw. Losing first or second round is not really what you need in that moment. You just need to build up matches and confidence and get back in the rhythm of playing a full week of the tournament.”
Bencic will now head to Indian Wells looking to go much deeper.
GO DEEPER
Belinda Bencic believes in herself, because of the women who came before her
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Now, about those other Indian Wells women’s wild cards
No need to apologize for giggles at the words “Indian Wells” and “wild card.” Tournament organisers last week announced that it had given one to 44-year-old Venus Williams — seemingly without clearing that with the eight-time Grand Slam champion. Williams, busy with commitments in Europe, will not be playing.
And so, the tournament moved on. Last week, Indian Wells added Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, and Bencic to the main draw. Not bad, assuming one believes in the concept of wild cards in the first place.
Bencic shouldn’t need one, having risen to world No. 58 since her return from giving birth. Stephens is outside the top 100 in the rankings. She has not won a tour-level match since the first round of Wimbledon, losing 10 in a row since. Kvitova, who is also on her way back from giving birth and is a two-time champion, received hers when the Williams wild card was announced
Americans Robin Montgomery, Alycia Parks and Bernarda Pera also received wild cards last week. So did Iva Jovic, who’s worth keeping an eye on. She’s 17 and has won matches at the Australian Open and U.S. Open. She’s also from Los Angeles and should have healthy crowd support and plenty of friends and family in the stands.
GO DEEPER
Venus Williams won’t play at Indian Wells despite receiving wild-card entry
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Recommended reading:
🏆 The winners of the week
🎾 ATP:
🏆 Tomas Machac (No 8 seed) def. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-6(6), 6-2 to win the Mexican Open (500) in Acapulco, Mexico. It is the Czech’s first ATP title.
🏆 Tsitsipas (4) def. Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-3 to win the Dubai Tennis Championships (500) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is his first 500-level title in 12 finals.
🏆 Laslo Djere def. Sebastian Baez (3) 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to win the Chile Open (250) in Santiago, Chile. It is his first ATP title since 2020.
🎾 WTA:
🏆 Emma Navarro (1) def. Emiliana Arango (Q) 6-0, 6-0 to win the Merida Open (500) in Merida, Mexico. It is Navarro’s first 500-level title.
🏆 Jessica Pegula (1) def. McCartney Kessler (5) 7-5, 6-2 to win the ATX Open (250) in Austin, Texas. It is the American’s seventh WTA Tour title.
📈📉 On the rise / Down the line
📈 Emiliana Arango moves up 53 places from No. 133 to No. 80 after her run to the final in Mexico.
📈 Tsitsipas returns to the top 10, moving from No. 11 to No. 9.
📈 Maya Joint moves inside the top 100 after rising 18 spots from No. 103 to No. 85.
📈 Learner Tien moves inside the top 70 after rising 15 spots from No. 83 to No. 68.
📉 Katie Boulter falls 12 places from No. 26 to No. 38.
📉 Alexander Bublik drops 31 places from No. 51 to No. 82.
📅 Coming up
🎾 ATP
📍Indian Wells, California: BNP Paribas Open (1,000) featuring Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Learner Tien.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻
🎾 WTA
📍Indian Wells, California: BNP Paribas Open (1,000) featuring Aryna Sabalenka, Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Zheng Qinwen.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.:
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.
(Top photo: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press; Design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
When a writer is praised for having a sense of place, it usually means one specific place — a postage stamp of familiar ground rendered in loving, knowing detail. But Kiran Desai, in her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” has a sense of places.
This 670-page book, about the star-crossed lovers of the title and several dozen of their friends, relatives, exes and servants (there’s a chart in the front to help you keep track), does anything but stay put. If “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” were an old-fashioned steamer trunk, it would be papered with shipping labels: from Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj), Goa and Delhi; from Queens, Kansas and Vermont; from Mexico City and, perhaps most delightfully, from Venice.
There, in Marco Polo’s hometown, the titular travelers alight for two chapters, enduring one of several crises in their passionate, complicated, on-again, off-again relationship. One of Venice’s nicknames is La Serenissima — “the most serene” — but in Desai’s hands it’s the opposite: a gloriously hectic backdrop for Sonia and Sunny’s romantic confusion.
Their first impressions fill a nearly page-long paragraph. Here’s how it begins.
Sonia is a (struggling) fiction writer. Sunny is a (struggling) journalist. It’s notable that, of the two of them, it is she who is better able to perceive the immediate reality of things, while he tends to read facts through screens of theory and ideology, finding sociological meaning in everyday occurrences. He isn’t exactly wrong, and Desai is hardly oblivious to the larger narratives that shape the fates of Sunny, Sonia and their families — including the economic and political changes affecting young Indians of their generation.
But “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is about more than that. It’s a defense of the very idea of more, and thus a rebuke to the austerity that defines so much recent literary fiction. Many of Desai’s peers favor careful, restricted third-person narration, or else a measured, low-affect “I.” The bookstores are full of skinny novels about the emotional and psychological thinness of contemporary life. This book is an antidote: thick, sloppy, fleshy, all over the place.
It also takes exception to the postmodern dogma that we only know reality through representations of it, through pre-existing concepts of the kind to which intellectuals like Sunny are attached. The point of fiction is to assert that the world is true, and to remind us that it is vast, strange and astonishing.
See the full list of the 10 Best Books of 2025 here.
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