The BNP Paribas Indian Wells Championships are played annually at the Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, California.

It is a state-of-the-art facility with a 16,000 seat stadium, the second largest in the world. The tournament is played on hard courts and combines the best male and female tennis players in the world.

It is a Masters 1,000 on the ATP Men’s Tour and a Premier Mandatory Event on the WTA Women’s Tour with each competition having a total prize money of $3,645,000.

The 2011 event ran from March 7-20 and was the most successful in the event’s history with 350,000 people in attendance for the fortnight.

Watching the men’s event

The best of the 32 seeds were Rafael Nadal (1) and Roger Federer (2), who were expected to meet in the final as they have dominated men’s tennis for so long.

They had a clear run to the semifinal, but many seeds fell by the wayside. Among those who lost in the first round were Baghdatis defeated by Devvarman, Tsonga defeated by Malisse, Ljubicic defeated by del Potro, Fish defeated by Ronic and García-López defeated by Harrison.

The first big shock of the tournament came with the Australian Open finalist’s loss to the young qualifier 7-6(4)/6-3.

Other upsets occurred as the tournament progressed with eighth seed Andy Roddick being defeated in the quarterfinals by 18th seed Gasquet 6-3/7-6(5) and Del Potro beating Dolgopolov, Kohlschreiber and Robredo (all seeds) only to fall to Rafael Nadal in a tough three setter 5-7/6-1/7-6(7).

Novak Djokovic prevented Roger Federer from reaching another final against Nadal by beating him 6-3/3-6/6-2 in the semifinal.

The Serb is having the best period of his tennis career and reached the final on a 19-match unbeaten streak. Djokovic, 23, had not lost a match since he was defeated by Federer in the Semi-Finals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in November 2010.

In a gripping finale to Indian Wells 2011, he continued his unbeaten streak by coming from a set down to beat Nadal 4-6/6-3/6-2.

Just three months into the ATP World Tour season, Djokovic is making his mark on the world of tennis with a total of 6 ATP World Tour Master titles and 21 Tour-level titles.

It was Djokovic’s third appearance in the Indian Wells final. In 2007 he lost to Nadal and in 2008 he lifted the trophy after beating Mardy Fish in the final.
Nadal is off to a poor start to 2011 having come down with a fever in Doha followed by an enforced 5-week layoff through injury after losing to Ferrer in the Australian Open quarter-final.

Watching the Women’s Event

The women’s event was headlined by world number 1 Caroline Wozniacki and Australian Open champion Kim Clijsters and was less eventful than the men’s championship.

Wozniacki worked her way to the final eliminating Martínez Sánchez and Alisa Kleybanova along the way. She won her match against Victoria Azarenka by default when the player from Belarus had to withdraw during her match due to injury.

In the bottom half of the draw, the surprise finalist was 26-year-old French player Marion Bartoli. The 2007 Wimbledon champion had an unfortunate match against Klijsters when she won by default. The Australian Open champion was down 3-6 / 1-3 when she had to withdraw with injury.

But she justified her place in the final by defeating Ana Ivanovic 6-4/7-6(4) and Yanina Wickmayer 6-1/6-3.

World number 1 Caroline Wozniacki reached the final showing impressive form in the semifinal against former champion Maria Sharapova.

She continued in this fashion in the final and conceded just three points to serve to run in the first set to win it 6-1.

Bartoli fought well in the second set breaking Wozniacki twice to take the second set 6-2, but the top seed came back strong in the third set to break Bartoli twice and take a 4-1 lead.

Despite the French woman falling back to 4-3, she was unable to win another game and Wozniacki took the match and the title 6-1/2-6/6-3.