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On Monday Match Analysis, Gill Gross breaks down the 2026 Indian Wells men’s singles draw quarter-by-quarter. We'll go quarter-by-quarter with dark horses, upset alerts, popcorn matchups and predictions. The top seeds are Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev.
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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
description hope you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe i'll see you next time
Monday Match Analysis
