Locals who missed an extraordinary afternoon’s play in the California desert on Friday could be forgiven for thinking they are seeing a mirage when they catch up with the men’s quarter-final results.
Indian Wells, a tournament that likes to style itself as the “fifth major”, only does big names. Since Roger Federer won his first title in 2004, the tournament has been monopolised by the big three, with only Ivan Ljubicic, Juan Martín del Potro and Dominic Thiem able to break the stranglehold of Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. With that trio of 20-time slam winners absent, this year was always going to be different, but nobody could have imagined quite how different.
Those seeking the comfort of the relatively familiar, following Grigor Dimitrov’s defeat of Daniil Medvedev, the top seed and recently crowned US Open champion, will perhaps have been reassured by the continued presence of Stefanos Tsitsipas, the world No 3 and French Open finalist. Up against the 36th-ranked Nikoloz Basilashvili, whom he had beaten in both their previous two meetings, Tsitsipas looked a racing certainty to bring a little star quality to the climactic weekend. Basilashvili had other ideas.
Few players hit the ball harder off the ground than Basilashvili and, having prospered earlier this year in the hot desert climate of Doha, where he beat Federer en route to the title, the Georgian has found the conditions in Indian Wells much to his liking. A poor opening service game from Tsitsipas saw him fall behind immediately, and as the Greek struggled to contain Basilashvili’s power and impose his customary authority from the baseline, a second break soon followed.
That proved decisive for the Georgian, but he had taken a set off Tsitsipas in both their previous encounters only to come unstuck, and history looked set to repeat itself when the Greek hit back strongly to win the second set. Tsitsipas was once again forced to recover from a bad start in the decider, but when a costly double fault handed Basilashvili a second break in the seventh game, the man from Tbilisi was not to be denied, holding firm on serve to see out a 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 victory.
If the watching world was shocked, Basilashvili was not. “Surprised?” he reflected after reaching the first Masters 1000 semi-final of his career. “Not really. I have been playing good tennis a long time in practice. I just didn’t have the first serve. It was missing, I had a big minus in the serve. [But] I improved a lot my serve lately. I think that’s why I’m in the semis now. In general, in the game, from the baseline – physically, as well – I’m feeling really good, I’m playing good, feeling the ball really well. If I will manage this kind of serving well, I can keep playing good.”
With Tsitsipsas out, the task of upholding the natural order fell to Alexander Zverev, the Olympic champion and third seed. The German came into his match against the 39th-ranked Taylor Fritz with 20 wins from his past 21 matches, and looked certain to add another victory to that run as Fritz served to stay in the contest at 2-5, 30-40. The Californian, who had earned his place in the last eight the hard way with wins over Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini, had given a decent account of himself, bouncing back to level the match after losing the opening set, but the errors were mounting now and, as Zverev absorbed a baseline barrage to roll a crosscourt forehand on to the baseline, the post-match handshake looked imminent. Fritz, though, lunged to his right and somehow scooped a forehand back into play, eliciting a cheap error from the stunned Zverev to maintain his interest in the battle. It proved an unlikely turning point.
“I played a solid point,” said Fritz following his 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) victory. “I made a pretty good pick-up off a deep ball. I easily could have missed that. I just told myself I really needed to hold that game, just to kind of fight through that. I really wanted to make him have to serve out the match. Obviously, he’s three in the world. This is the furthest I’ve ever been in a big tournament. It’s easily the best win of my life, against a really tough opponent in arguably the biggest match I could possibly play. So it’s great.”
In truth, Fritz’s powers of retrieval should not have mattered. Zverev held a match point in the next game, only to produce a double fault as his game started to unravel. It was all the encouragement Fritz needed, the American seeing out the climactic tiebreak in emphatic style to book a semi-final appointment with Basilashvili.
“Today was just not really my day,” said Zverev. “I was close to winning, but the level of tennis was just not quite there for me.
“Fritz played a great match. He deserves to be in the semis. Yeah, I mean, today mentally is not easy for me.
“This one hurts, because I knew that after Stefanos lost this morning, I was kind of the favourite to win this tournament. But my tennis wasn’t there.”