{"id":80560,"date":"2025-03-01T08:15:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T13:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=80560"},"modified":"2025-02-28T23:07:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T04:07:30","slug":"nine-more-players-receive-indian-wells-wild-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/03\/01\/nine-more-players-receive-indian-wells-wild-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine More Players Receive Indian Wells Wild Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The wait is nearly over, as the 2025 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells is about to begin. The reveal of the second batch of wild cards for this year&#8217;s tournament has fans excited for the first leg of the Sunshine Double.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/19\/four-players-receive-indian-wells-wild-cards\/\" target=\"_self\">Among the first names<\/a> to receive Wildcards were Brazil&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/18\/joao-fonseca-is-the-new-el-fenomeno-of-brazilian-tennis\/\" target=\"_self\">Joao Fonseca<\/a> and the returning Petra Kvitova. The event organizers have now listed nine more players who have been granted a wild card to compete in one of the most prestigious tournaments on the calendar. But who are they?<\/p>\n<h2>Nine More Players Receive Indian Wells Wild Cards<\/h2>\n<p>Heading the new list on the men&#8217;s side is rising NextGen star <strong>Nishesh Basavareddy<\/strong>. The 19-year-old American made quite the splash in January when he reached his first ATP semifinal as a qualifier in Auckland. Basavareddy also impressed on his Grand Slam main draw debut at the Australian Open. He famously took a set from 24-time Major champion Novak Djokovic in Melbourne in a four-set defeat. This will be his first appearance in Indian Wells.<\/p>\n<p>Second on the list is <strong>Reilly Opelka<\/strong>. The tall American initially opted to use his protected ranking to access a main draw berth. But he&#8217;s now been given a wild card and can choose to use the PR in another tournament. Opelka has an 8-4 record in 2025. In January, he reached his first ATP final in three years at the Brisbane International. The former world #17 last played at the Indian Wells Masters in 2022 (lost to Rafael Nadal in the last 16).<\/p>\n<p>Tristan Boyer has been awarded the third wild card. The 23-year-old is a three-time champion on the Challenger Tour and qualified for the 2025 Australian Open (reaching the second round). Boyer&#8217;s only previous appearance in Indian Wells was seven years ago when he lost in the first round of qualifying as a 16-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>Learner Tien&#8217;s wild card spot has been freed up <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/27\/five-players-withdraw-from-2025-bnp-paribas-open-indian-wells\/\" target=\"_self\">because of a large number of withdrawals<\/a>. He has entered the main draw with his current ranking. The BNP Paribas Open is expected to announce his replacement.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"20suKLmdRrhgnidEr2c_wA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2193701750\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'20suKLmdRrhgnidEr2c_wA',sig:'_PDxPWfuDPidN8cYeNrBZ8hJJz65zkXy2FABdwPEbcg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2193701750',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Five Americans Lead Women&#8217;s Wild Card List<\/h3>\n<p>On the women&#8217;s side, <strong>Belinda Bencic<\/strong> is on the newly released wild card list. She is one of two moms who have been granted a wild card into the main draw of Indian Wells (the other is Petra Kvitova). The Swiss&#8217; comeback has been a revelation. She has won 13 of 17 matches this season and lifted her 10th career title in Abu Dhabi in February.<\/p>\n<p>Five other wild cards have gone to American players. The first one is <strong>Sloane Stephens<\/strong>. The former US Open champion is now a veteran in the sport. Stephens made her Indian Wells debut in 2010 and has played in every edition except for 2017 (injured) and 2020 (canceled because of coronavirus).<\/p>\n<p>The second is an interesting one. Two-time junior Grand Slam champion <strong>Iva Jovic<\/strong> will make her Indian Wells bout. The 17-year-old is regarded as one of the best up-and-coming young players in the women&#8217;s game and is ranked a career-high world #165. She was runner-up at the 2023 International Junior Championships at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.<\/p>\n<p>The third American wild card in the women&#8217;s draw is <strong>Robin Montgomery<\/strong>. The 20-year-old hasn&#8217;t played since the Australian Open qualifying rounds in January. This will be her third main draw appearance in Indian Wells.<\/p>\n<p>Another lefty wild card is <strong>Bernarda Pera<\/strong>. She will be playing for the fourth time in the main draw. Pera reached the third round in 2023. That remains her best appearance in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alycia Parks<\/strong> completes the current list. The big-serving American is 9-6 for the season and has not won a match in the Indian Wells main draw in two previous tries.<\/p>\n<p>Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams won&#8217;t compete as initially expected. The 44-year-old legend declined her wild card, which opened up space for another player to take that spot.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey &#8211; Imagn Images<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wait is nearly over, as the 2025 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells is about to begin. The reveal of the second batch of wild cards for this year&#8217;s tournament has fans excited for the first leg of the Sunshine Double. Among the first names to receive Wildcards were Brazil&#8217;s Joao Fonseca and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":80506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,4],"tags":[15376,266,2480,831,828,42396,18636,18113,41696,101,19,11908,463,18775,70],"class_list":["post-80560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-atp","category-wta","tag-alycia-parks","tag-belinda-bencic","tag-bernarda-pera","tag-bnp-paribas-open","tag-indian-wells","tag-iva-jovic","tag-joao-fonseca","tag-learner-tien","tag-nishesh-basavareddy","tag-petra-kvitova","tag-reilly-opelka","tag-robin-montgomery","tag-sloane-stephens","tag-tristan-boyer","tag-venus-williams"],"modified_by":"Shane Black","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80560"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80577,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80560\/revisions\/80577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}