It wasn’t until the following evening, on a day elongated by rare desert rain, that people lost their shit. Due to the many delays, which, contrary to podcaster Craig Shapiro’s Instagram story advice to “pound it out at Porta Via,” I mostly spent wandering around, gazing up at the drizzle, Stadium 1 ushers stopped checking tickets and let fans from the nosebleeds fill the lower levels for the second half of the three-set clash between Arthur Fils and Marcos Giron, as well as the subsequent headliner: Daniil Medvedev vs. Tommy Paul. 

Maybe it was that Americans were playing or the thrill of newly acquired incredible seats, but it seemed like dozens of people in the stadium suddenly believed they’d been hired on to the coaching teams of Paul and/or Giron (with a few thrown in for Fils, too). One of them, seated not far from me, continued bellowing increasingly desperate tactical advice after almost every point (“Big targets, Tommy!”) as the American No. 2 lost eight consecutive games to close out his exit from the tournament. 

During my time in Tennis Paradise, I was also struck by the sanitized apoliticality of Indian Wells. While tennis generally reads as less American than our domestic major sports, whose pregame rituals usually include some type of Troop Salute, even the U.S. Open indulges a bit in nationalist impulses. 

The Tennis Garden, by contrast, embraced a blank, timeless internationalism. Landscape aside, I felt like I wasn’t in California or America or any discernibly regional place. Instead, this was a nationless, godless land in which only commerce existed. 

None of the many things you could buy—fashion, food, etc.—were particularly tethered to “the now.” Aside from a few fits in the Fila tent and a Detroit Pizza vendor, the Hip Tennis wave that seems inescapable just a couple hours away in L.A. was basically nowhere to be found here. It was all very pan-2000s pseudo-luxury, perhaps best exemplified by: a Nobu outpost, copious ads for the Motorola Razr, and (paradoxically considering the nominal apoliticality of it all) the Saudi PIF tent. 

I decided to hit up the PIF tent because, unlike Nobu (and most things at Indian Wells), it was free. After being given a pair of complimentary pins (that I’m sorry to admit go incredibly hard), the kind staff told me how the PIF was sponsoring a ticket giveaway for the next day. All I needed to do was scan a QR code and log some play time on the digital game stations scattered around the tent. All of the games had a line, however, and I couldn’t figure out why the PIF was mandating them for the giveaway. They already harvested all the personal data they could possibly want from the sign-up. In the end, I declined. 

Like many things at Indian Wells, the Saudi influence thought to blend in. It’s all good. All regular. All normal business, no different from La Roche-Posay or the Veroni charcuterie. 

I had much more interest in the things that stuck out. The fans who really didn’t know ball. The aggressively bad graphic T-shirts promoting BNP Paribas. And, after all, the players. 

I find watching live tennis magnifies weapons and weaknesses. The asymmetries of a player’s games that so often get blurred by the distance of a TV broadcast pop more when you’re in the building. The way Daniil Medvedev swallows space with his gangly movement. How Ben Shelton’s serve and forehand explode off the court, and that his focus dramatically ebbs and flows in a match. It’s even clearer how Madison Keys’ boundless power can dwarf even a fellow big hitter like Vekic. Or how Coco Gauff, despite her guile and grit, tries to avoid her erratic forehand on big points. 

It’s stuff like that that makes seeing tennis live in any environment—be it a 1000-level event in Tennis Paradise or the qualifying rounds of Futures at a ramshackle club—an engrossing and gripping experience. No matter how much or little you know, there’s always a new nuance to spot, a new thing about the match to figure out. 

The tennis, however, may not have been the most visually striking thing at Indian Wells. That honor, in my book, goes to the Dropshot, the neon green signature drink sold around the grounds and sponsored by the Station 29 Casino. Unlike its rival in New York, the much-hyped (but ultimately mid) Honey Deuce, the Dropshot looks in no way fit for human consumption. 

When I finally worked up the courage to order one on Wednesday, my first question wasn’t “How much does this thing cost?” but “What is in this…” It turned out it was basically all pineapple, of various forms, and a shot of tequila. The green hue was pure food coloring. 

As for the taste, I actually didn’t mind sipping my Dropshot from my seat on Stadium 1, the weather once again bright and sunny, the fragrant culinary exhaust wafting up from the concession stands toward the pale desert sky. That is, until I reached the grainy “pineapple salsa” at the bottom of the cup, which may have been the worst thing I’ve tasted in 2025. By this time, down on the court, wild card Belinda Bencic, looking to continue her Cinderella run, was serving up 5–4 in the third against Coco Gauff. Behind me, a member of a group of guys who loved saying “boom” in the middle of points remarked to no one in particular, “I’m pretty sure Coco needs to win this game. If she loses it, the match might end.”