Indian Wells tournament director Tommy Haas has announced a new $1m bonus for anyone who wins both singles and doubles events as the wildcards are revealed.
The move is to encourage more singles players to play doubles as Haas revealed, “We want to encourage more of the top singles players to play doubles at the BNP Paribas Open, and therefore are offering a bonus of $1 million in 2018 as a significant incentive. While we have traditionally had great participation by singles players competing in doubles, we know how much our fans love to watch doubles at our tournament, and we want to give them the best possible doubles fields over the fortnight.”
There are currently 27 players in both Men’s and Women’s singles draws, who have also entered the doubles, with ten further men’s doubles teams and nine women’s doubles teams still to enter the draw. The doubles draws will be announced on Tuesday for the Women and Wednesday for the men. The Women’s doubles draw is set to begin on Wednesday the 7th of March, with the Men’s doubles event set to begin on the Friday. Only six players have previously won both singles and doubles tournaments in the same year.
Wildcards
The wildcards for both Men’s and Women’s singles have also been announced, with some surprising and controversial inclusions. Headlining the Men’s wildcards is the controversial Tennys Sandgren, he will also be joined by Alex De Minaur, who had an amazing start to the season in Australia.
As for the Women, surprising inclusions involve the likes of former grand slam finalist Eugenie Bouchard as well as Victoria Azarenka, Sofya Zhuk and Amanda Anisimova. Here are the full list of wildcards for both events as well as qualifying:
Men’s Singles
- Tennys Sandgren
- Ernesto Escobedo
- Bradley Klahn
- Reilly Opelka
- Alex De Minaur
Women’s Singles
- Eugenie Bouchard
- Caroline Dolehide
- Claire Liu
- Kayla Day
- Danielle Collins
- Amanda Anisimova
- Sofya Zhuk
- Victoria Azarenka
Men’s Qualifying Singles
- Noah Rubin
- Marcos Giron
- Evan Song
- Thanasi Kokkinakis
- TBA
Women’s Qualifying Singles
- Louisa Chirico
- Allie Kiick
- Anne Li
- Ashley Kratzer
- Roberta Vinci
- Sabine Lisicki
