Indian Wells 2026 PREVIEW & PREDICTIONS | Monday Match Analysis

Welcome everyone to Monday Match Analysis, I'm Gil Gross and it is time for a preview of

Indian Wells 2026, first one thousand of the year I am in an Airbnb in Palm Springs

right now.

Do an Indian Wells radio over the course of week one which is mostly like an earpiece

product but if you're on the grounds definitely look for me, say hi and then a second week

I'm off of Phoenix Challenger for I think it's my third straight year but it might be

four it's kind of hard to keep track of I think it's three so exciting couple of weeks

coming up as for Indian Wells just going into these predictions it's a little bit unclear

exactly what the conditions are going to look like this year because there have been

changes and last year there was of course the narrative that came with the change in

court manufacture where they switched to Lakehold and theoretically there were new courts.

It was thought that that was going to speed up the conditions significantly but player

testimony and the data suggested that it didn't really speed up.

This year there's another change into the mix and I think Taylor Fritz's long monologue

while playing what War of Warcraft I might even have that wrong sort of made this a mainstream

storyline that now they're going to the Dunlop balls how will that affect things and I don't

really know at this point which of course makes it a little bit more difficult to predict

Indian Wells what I do know is that aces are way up during qualifying it's also been really

hot that's going to make it a little bit quicker that will drive up the numbers but it was

significant when you look into the numbers how many more aces there were in qualifying that's

a major indicator that it's going to be a little bit faster I'm still going to assume that

there's some grit in the court I'm still going to look at tournament history who likes playing

here who has enjoyed the thin desert air these are still things that I'm going to look at but

is there a suspicion that it's not going to be quite as slow and in the past of course India

Wells we're looking at a lot of defense we're looking at a lot of topspin we're looking at a lot

of physicality we are not as much looking at serving I do think that it's going to be less extreme in

that sense here in 2026 we'll have to see I'll know a lot more in the coming days being on the

grounds watching a lot of the tennis and and talking to people but right now I feel like

I feel uncertain it is really what I'm saying so let's get into this quarter by quarter

if you're new to the channel we're going to do dark courses that is a unceded player I think

might go deep upset alert is a seated player I think may lose early early popcorn an early round

match that I don't think you should miss and of course quarter final predictions we'll start with

Carlos Alcarazza's quarter by the way throwback to last year Zverev was the top seed at this

tournament last year it's always kind of interesting because I go back into my notes and my slides and

sometimes you forget that things looked so different in in some ways at least just one year ago

all right Alcarazza's quarter the top seeds Alcaraz demonore bublic rude dardery vashiro rindrick

netch and nori my dark course here is michael jang my upset alert is Arthur rindrick netch

and my early popcorn is demonore versus quarter round two I think this is first off a good

quarter for Alcarazza but we'll get to that in a moment uh michael jang is of course the college

player who made a lot of noise at the australian open and beat Sebastian quarter in the first round

and was a killer on the challenger tour at the end of last year and I just think based on

what we've seen recently from rafael hodar and what we saw a couple years ago from Ben

Shelton these college players can definitely hit the ground running and I think while they're

in college they do have sort of this special psychological aura people don't know much about them

I feel like michael jang he's he's a a bit of an unknown commodity as far as play style and

I think there's a wild card factor there and then just there's really no pressure

he's not a full-time player on tour yet and I find these college guys who are still in college

can play so free it's a dangerous thing and then of course the third factor here is that he's

he's just really good he's super super solid keeps the air account very low he's got great depth

and ball control off the backhand and he's got really really good footwork great movement around

the court so michael jang is my dark horse he's playing the winner of you know the draw in front

of me doesn't have qualifiers filled in but I think it's school Kate and somebody else are the

qualifiers uh and then potentially Alexander bublic bublic is four and six lifetime at this event

however I think bublic in 2026 is kind of a different thing than bublic throughout his career

and this was kind of the start of the turnaround really phoenix challenger last year so uh we'll

get to more of that in a moment but my upset alert is Arthur rindrick netch who plays the winner

of one monwell surrender low and bowtick vandazonchkel these are great conditions they traditionally

have been for vandazonchkel a lot of time to load up the forehand power and the high bounce which

he certainly enjoys he is somebody who can definitely be frisky in early rounds we've seen him upset

a lot of uh you know top 30 players early at big events in the past and rindrick netch he is pretty

serve reliant still at this point um offensively I love him but if the conditions slow down and he

needs to play more rallies and run side to side more that's where his vulnerabilities can be exposed

a little bit if he plays one monwell surrender low uh surrender low has is he's playing the best tennis

I've ever seen on play uh the forehand has really been performing albeit on the clay I do think that

if rindrick netch were to play one monwell he he would probably just go heavy diet of servant valley

and be okay my early popcorn here demonore quarter round two now most people are going to put

alchoraz dimitrov I could understand why I'm more intrigued by demonore corda in a potential round two

and corda in order to set up that matchup would have to beat francisco comasagna I'd be pretty

surprised if he didn't win that one uh I'll I'll actually go a step further I'd be very surprised

if he didn't win that corda narratively is interesting right now he certainly had an excellent

February after losing first round at the australian open makes the run at the san diego challenger

plays really well in dallas and then of course wins del rise so there's some excitement there

demonore has hated playing at indian wells in the past he just hits way too flat it's going to be a good

indicator of whether or not things are different based on how he looks um that's not going to be

the main indicator but you know what I mean like he's going to be one of those players he would love

indian wells to be different because it's been really tough for him but to me that's just a very

competitive more 50 50 matchup with a lot of interesting narratives involved so that's my early pop

corn match quarter final is alchoraz defeats bubliq this uh eighth opposite alchoraz is somewhat

difficult to predict uh cam nori has played really well at indian wells but he's not in good form

and luchano dardari has had an incredible 2026 but the australian open run was really the first time

he's ever done anything on a hard court uh and then of course you know he's changing surfaces

demonore as i mentioned so although bubliq is of course a quick conditions player

i think that the draw here is is going to open up for him in a way where or he can take advantage

and he's been really good at beating who he's supposed to beat over the course of the last year

and i know that's the kind of the opposite of bubliq's reputation a guy who's seen as sort of this

high ceiling low floor uncomfortable to play against for the top players but could lose any other match

folks look at his results in the last year he has been the exact opposite of that he has not been

other than the role on garros run he has not been able to really like beat top 10 players

towards the end of tournaments over the course of last year but you know what he has done

pretty much beaten everybody else with consistency his win rate against players

who are ranked lower than him in the last year is 80 percent

however karlos alkarez is my semi-finalist uh he is still undefeated in 2026

playing tougher defense than ever more you know cleaner tennis than ever more disciplined tennis

than ever uh that said he's still bringing incredible weaponry to the table he's still

owning his attacking tennis uh the serve the the the revamping of the serve i feel like is going

to continue to pay more and more dividends as the as the year goes on but i don't think that that's

been a huge factor in his success this year i think his serve has been pretty close to what we saw

throughout 2025 uh it's really been the the speed and athleticism combined with just

improved defensive capabilities for alkarez has has made him that much harder to beat because

players used to of course they're going to try to red line against him they're going to try to

bring a lot of pace they're going to try to rush him and it's just not working right now it's

just not working which is a credit to karlos okay no back joke of it which is quarter top

seeds are jokavitch fritz medvedev draper syrindalo lahatchka mutey and um bear my dark horse here

is huber hercatch my upset alert is you go on bear and early popcorn is medvedev against the winner

of tabelo or ho dar hercatch is a guy who has loved playing in indian wells and that's of course

been a little bit surprising he does like himself a north american hard court but you'd think a

surface that takes away from his surf potency might really detract from what hercatch is able to

do uh that hasn't been the case and i think that has a lot to do with the high bounce uh he's one

of these players and there are a couple of these big servers and menchic jokavitch menchic would be

another couple of these big servers where it doesn't really matter what conditions they're serving

on their serve is going to really do them a lot of good however they may be more contact point

sensitive off the ground i think hercatch is uh or they might be a little bit rushable i think her

catch is when the ball sits up for him at a higher contact point huber just becomes a lot better off

the ground and i think that's why he's enjoyed playing in indian wells so much um he's got mutey

he's got the 31 seed who uh i think he can also use his net russian quite a bit against

uh then he'd get no back jokavitch and it's all about sort of what kind of shape what kind of

mood is no back in that's always been difficult to predict at indian wells in particular it's been

really um about a decade now since he's been a contender at indian wells

not a contender that's that's the wrong verbiage because that that implies coming in right coming

in you're a contender but i would say he has not been a high performer at indian wells in about a

decade and i've talked about it a lot it's just i think to me it's calendar spot it's not a great

motivational period in the calendar for no vac and that accounts for most of it in my view my

upsettler here is you go on bear north american hard courts the resume is not great and as a flat

hitter it's also uh a sur a court surface that traditionally he hasn't enjoyed it again i don't

know how much that is going to change this year uh um bear what does he got

i tried to circle him i'm on my draw but i'm not i'm not even oh there he is oh michelson michelson

okay michelson does two things that um bear should hate it's a great backhand particularly on the

return with the wide lefty serve and it's a lot of depth michelson has great depth and uh those

are two things that are are some of the most helpful attributes when playing um bear early popcorn

medvedev against tabelo ho dar deniel is one of the players who was stuck in Dubai for

what a few extra days three three or four days longer than he would have wanted i believe

and i do think that's a detriment because two main things the jet lag and it's it's significant

it's it's as bad as it gets in terms of jet lag and i think that's always sort of an underrated

obstacle for these guys and they just were not able to get here as soon as maybe they would have

wanted uh given that factor and also the conditions in Dubai i don't i don't care if indian wells is

faster this year there's no chance it's going to play anything nearly as quick as Dubai so it's

going to be a little bit of a uh a difference in that respect also strangely right Dubai is the

i at least think of it as the desert it was humid last week so you've also got a pretty big change

in air density it's going to feel very different quarter final pretty oh tabelo ho dar i guess i

didn't address the other side of that matchup um i loved how tabelo looked at golden swing and i

know he didn't have at the splashy results he didn't win a title like you know surrender low did

or like dartory did but um he looked really consistently good like all three events actually

i think he took a tough loss loss and Rio if my memory serves but um tabelo was was really good

and it's one of those players i know he's playing the golden swing and he's south american but he's

just as good on hard court as he is on clay so unlike some of the guys who play that swing

who i expect maybe not to carry over the momentum whatever momentum they had uh tabelo i don't

put in that camp i think he's going to get back in the top 30 Alejandro tabelo

quarter final prediction here is fritz defeats draper jack is the defending champion and of course

a lot of this comes down to how his body is feeling and uh you know if he can bring the level

that he's capable of when he's in rhythm when he's in form uh which i know there will be a lot of

doubts about just because he has not played much tennis at all in the last eight months but

i watched him in Dubai i watched both matches i thought he looked good i thought the tennis was

pretty much what you'd expect against rindrick netch he got he got out served

against a great server in unbelievably server friendly conditions lost in three so i didn't find

it to be a problematic level in that loss and jack as far as what was i looking for there

is he popping the surf is he is he hitting out on the forehand where there are moments of shaky

confidence on the forehand yes so that's something to watch out for but um the way these conditions

helped his heavy rpm and you know helped his forehand and jump off the court made that such a

damaging weapon plus you have the physicality consistency movement jack is so good at hanging

in rallies and i saw that in Dubai even in conditions where it was difficult to do that um i

i still expect him to bring that to the table and the the draw i think is also pretty

pretty favorable um up there for um for jack draper

assuming that novec jokovic is not at his best which is what i assume at indian wells it's just

how it's been i know last year was a little bit of a reversal because in march he made the final

in mayami so i think over the course of the last you know several years it's been the entire sun

shine swing plus monicarlo where novec hasn't been at his best but then last year you can look at

mayami is kind of the outlier because disappointing loss in indian wells to bowtick and first around

loss in in monicarlo as well or opening match loss in monicarlo as well and then as for Taylor

Fritz this has been his his favorite event throughout his career and i feel like the last two years

he he has cooled off a little bit at this event but even when he loses it's been against top

players in really close really high quality matches uh this is a huge motivational spot for him

and i guess in february glass half full the fact that he played all the way through it means that

all of the ailments that we saw in australia the knee and the oblique or the abdominal

they it wasn't that bad you know he was able to play a full february you could go glass half empty

which i kind of have in that respect and you know just feeling as if Taylor should maybe take some

more rest and take care of his body but i think for indian wells uh there will be a there will be

a push from fritz and his seeds are umbear lahechka and medvedev i'm backing Taylor out of that group

before we go to the next quarter quick message we go to alexander zverev he is the number four seed

the seeds in his quarter are muceti f a caboli roublev tiafo nakashima and feasts fun quarter here

dark horse is misha ketsmanovich my upset alert is andrei roublev early pop corn zverev versus

baritini round two ketsmanovich on hard court first three months of the year traditionally it's

been where he's played his best tennis uh he's been competitive to start the year nothing spectacular

but there is some uh some draw stuff that i like here he plays uh deniel ultmyre in the first round

and ultmyre is really struggling on confidence and then the winner of uh brook speed popperin kind

of a 50-50 match there in my estimation and ketsmanovich's rock solid caboli is his seed as well

so there's a potential for a little bit of a tidal hangover we do see that sometimes um

caboli's floor is also pretty low if you catch him on a bad day

ketsmanovich obviously not the not the highest upside player but but he really can sort of hang

around like a a thirties range if you're looking especially at these conditions and that was the

most compelling unseated in this quarter to me my upset alert andrei roublev i'm not i'm not just

gonna like pick on the Dubai guys who who got stuck after the tournament because of the airspace

closing uh with the war um that's not really my main logic here although i do think as i laid out

with medvedev it's an obstacle roublev has not enjoyed these indian wells conditions and he gets

the winner of baluchi diallo second round matia baluchi uh he he does get hot and he's got way bigger

weapons than his body would suggest he takes the ball early he actually serves big he's got a

heavy rpm forehand or diallo who i've been talking about a lot but he's gonna serve big he's gonna play

offensively he's gonna try to come forward i i think that's just an uncomfortable opener for roublev

either way i actually do have him winning i'm fascinated to see who gets through this eighth

but i'll save that early popcorns bear of baratini that's on the bottom half and i'm

i'm very interested to see like what kind of emotional spark baratini brings because he has looked

a little bit flat in recent weeks and i'm starting to wonder if the the where the mental where from

having to constantly rehab has has started to get the better of him so i kind of have my eyes on

this verif baratini potential round two particularly because i want to see like how much fire

Mateo can show most likely on stadium one or stadium two in front of a nice crowd against a top

player i want to see him in that setting again and just like see how much energy he's able to play with

let's go to the quarter final prediction here is zverev over musetti kind of surprised myself

similar to the australian open when i there were a lot of reasons to sort of fade musetti so to

speak and i still kind of went his way i'm like i just think he's going to scrap out wins because

he's gotten really really good at that and this is a similar situation because he's he's just

off injury i didn't even expect him to be back so soon but i'm just having trouble

trusting some of these other guys over him f a is not like these conditions rublev is not like

these conditions are there feasts i don't know that he's going to like i feel like he may play

into musetti's hands a bit with some of the linear power through the middle of the court and i

don't know that he'll love the variety uh that that musetti is going to bring so i'm not super

confident on this one but i go Lorenzo i do think that zverev feels like a pretty safe pick here

he's got kaboly he's got tiafo he's got naka shima and he's my semi-finalist i didn't heavily

consider taking anybody else here i know that f a had a great february he's had a lot of great februaries

things generally change for him at this event regardless of what happens because the conditions

are are so different for him here yannick center is the number two seed he's got shelton mencic hatchenov

davidavic faquina paul tn and etchivari dark horse here marco skirone upside alert karen hatchenov early

popcorn tti pas versus sap of all of in round one marco skirones a flat hitter but he's played really

well at indian wells is it because it's a southern california hard court and he just feels like

this is kind of my home this is my jam maybe is it the physicality of the conditions and how marcos

is able to embrace that is at the extra time on the ball which girone does enjoy despite not

really being able to move on clay and that's why you kind of see the the results go downhill on the

dirt he loves a slow hard court where he's got plenty of time to sort of unload on that big forehand

and by the way run around and create more forehands uh girone draw wise has mariana nivona in the

first round very winnable and then yackup mencic going to be tough of course the flat ball the low

contact point mencic may not love that but um i think if i i would i would struggle to see marcos

returning well enough against mencic to break his serve enough in that matchup but

upset alert we're going carren hatching off he's got likely joe alfonseca round two and i do think

despite fonseca just looking a little bit slower this year than he did last year plus looking

obviously less sharp in the big moments which i think is just down to lack of match winning momentum

understandable uh but all of those things have been very real so far for fonseca in 2026 which

of course the back injury kind of derailed the start of this season it certainly seems

do you think hatching off as a guy can kind of play him into rhythm

we can go under dog mentality again it's going to be a lot less pressure than south america

so i think he can sort of let loose a little bit um and not feel as much stress

in his in his mind and more importantly in his right arm um he's got to serve better though

really didn't serve well um at at at the clay court events throughout the golden swing

i would still put hatching off on upset alert though there seat to pass shop of all of we've

got a nice little round one nice to see in the 32 seed format uh 32 by format i should say a first

round match up that's going to get the people going just to throw back kind of next gen 2021

uh tt pass shop of all of and i do favor tt pass in that one i think the first strike ten is for

tt pass at times this year has looked really strong i think the the forehand in a lot of ways has

gone a level up from what it's been the last couple of years still some issues there

but i do favor tt pass who also hasn't really loved indian wells in fairness quarter final here center

over shelton you know if there's one spot where ben could make something happen in this matchup

it would actually be here i think if shelton was not in alcarazza's or center's quarter i was

going to pick him to the semi finals i wanted to back him for a big run here i love the the

lively bounce that he gets off the court i like the extra time on the forehand i of course like

the fact that he's in the us and can can use the crowd to his advantage interestingly enough if

you looked at the title run in canada the title run in Dallas i actually felt like he scaled back

some of the aggression at points over the course of those runs so i don't know if he's taking some

learning from that i think he still needs to be an offensive player right if he's going to beat

the best he's going to beat center he's not doing it from neutral and defense he's doing it in attack

so that's certainly a consideration uh meanwhile center i don't think would love the the fact that

the ball is going to kind of jump out of his strike zone in these conditions traditionally and

he'd like a little bit of speed to rush shelton which is something he's done very successfully

it's just been too lopsided it's just been too lopsided in this head to head where i just don't have

the cajonace to to pick shelton to beat center here because he's got to kind of take some steps

towards it first like when when a set right and then we can start looking at winning a match

against yonick center but i don't know i just i kind of flag it if it's going to happen it happens

here this is an unbelievable quarter this is the quarter of death

menchix been playing great tn i would expect to bring a really high level as well tn shelton in

a possible third round is a really fun one and divided of itch fokina even slow hard core is

his best conditions so really good quarter especially in the top 8th tommy paul tommy paul has played

well here this to me is the strongest quarter overall all right predictions in three to one

alchras over fritz in two center over is verive in three alchras over center in straits

kind of the the standard here of course and i do think that this tournament has the potential

to deliver a little bit more variance especially because indian wells at times has delivered that

particularly with the unconventional calendar spot and the very kind of unique conditions but

i kind of went safe here with fritz and verive because i think if it's playing slow and gritty

they're fine if it's playing a little bit quicker they're fine so i was kind of comfortable with those

two especially taylor who's just who loves it here typically and of course it's been kind of the

same story with both zverive and fritz where as consistent as they've been over of course the last

two years they haven't put too many scares into alchras in center save for like what zverive did in

australia which was cramping induced so another alchras center final the the one thing that i would say

would be in favor of center here would be that this rivalry it zags all the time when you think it's

gonna zig didn't happen at the atp finals last year when yannick was like to clear an obvious pick

but at the australian open remember narratively center was the favorite just conditions tournament

history the coaching change for alchras so so often we've seen this rivalry it's competitive enough

and surfaces and all that we've seen it kind of go against what you think i don't think a lot of

people are going to be picking against alchras right now because the level is as good as we've

ever seen it for center the last two losses he's taken probably the the worst back-to-back losses

we've seen in a couple of years which is saying something because they weren't that bad but that's

just how good yannick center has been so this is a moment in time where i think most will be back in

carlos but if you throw on top of the fact that this has been the tournament where i think alchras has

played some of the best tennis of his career want it back-to-back years wasn't in great shape

mentally last year when he lost to draper but it was still the semifinals hard to go anywhere else

ending on bulky picks tier one alchras tier two fritz tier three shelton tier four paul tier five

tier six feasts enter bulky put your picks in it's a fantasy tennis game that i designed

definitely join australian open was great participation there linked to that will be in the

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