Indian Wells, a.k.a. the BNP Paribas Open, a.k.a. the “fifth Slam,” kicks into another gear today, as many of the tournament’s seeded players take to the courts for their first matches. (On the women’s side, number-one seed Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, and Naomi Osaka all play; on the men’s side, Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Musetti, Alexander Zverev, and a swath of Americans: Learner Tien, Ben Shelton, Reilly Opelka, Brandon Nakashima, Jenson Brooksby, Frances Tiafoe, Zachary Svajda, Marcos Giron, and Tommy Paul.)
Are most of us still rooting for another epic final showdown between Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz? Indeed we are, with Sinner at the moment on the hot seat and needing to level up. And are a lot of us eager to see Sabalenka try to add a big trophy to the new hardware on her ring finger—against, perhaps, Gauff, who at her best can blunt Sabalenka’s nuclear groundstrokes with her steady perseverance and wily strategy? Yes.
But we’re also keeping a sharp eye on two players today who have been burning up the rankings and knocking off opponents far more seasoned than themselves. Two years ago, Canadian Vicky Mboko, 19, was floating in the mid-300s in terms of her WTA ranking; she’s now ranked 10th, having knocked off recent opponents including Naomi Osaka, Mirra Andreeva, and Elena Rybakina. (Among other accolades, she’s the fastest player since Jennifer Capriati in 1990 to rise from 200th to the top 10.)
A few months ago, Mboko was in New York for Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show, where she became BFFs with Jon Bon Jovi, a huge tennis (and, apparently, fashion) fan. “It was only fate for us to strike up a conversation,” Mboko told us by the side of a court in Palm Desert, near the Indian Wells tournament, as she shot a Wilson Tennis campaign ahead of the tournament. (Mboko is one of Wilson’s so-called head-to-toe athletes—she wears Wilson apparel and shoes, and hits with the Wilson Blade racquet.) “He told me he was going to stop by the Miami Open, so hopefully I’ll see him there again.” (An interesting sidenote: Mboko has literally been playing with Wilson her entire life. “My first racquet was a Wilson Spongebob,” she said.
It’s Mboko’s first time playing Indian Wells, so she’s been spending most of her time training rather than exploring, but she hopes to change that soon, pending her schedule. “I want to go somewhere so I can see more scenery—maybe one of these days I can take a hike up into the mountains,” she said.
First, though, she’ll have to contend with Australia’s 69th-ranked Kimberly Birrell in her opening match today and, potentially, anyone from Osaka to Sabalenka to the young American phenom Iva Jovic, 18, on her route through the tournament. Mboko, though, is keeping the pressure low. “I honestly don't set expectations for myself—I mean, anyone can get the trophy,” she said. “You could have good weeks, you could have bad weeks, so you’ve just got to be positive.”
The Czech player Jakub Mensik, sitting just around the corner at the same shoot, has also been on a roll; he’s currently ranked 12th, his highest-ever notch on the men’s ladder, and is still riding high on his win over Sinner in Doha a few weeks ago. “It gave me the thought that I can play against the best players in the world,” said Mensik (who’s also beaten Andrey Rublev, Taylor Fritz, and his friend and mentor Novak Djokovic). “It gives me a lot of energy.”
That energy is apparent when watching Mensik play—but while most tennis-watchers would call his monster serve and topspin-heavy groundstrokes his biggest weapons, Mensik credits something else: “My mental strength,” he said. “I feel very, very good on the court when it comes to pressure moments, or when we are going for the big points. I’m not saying that I’m winning everything, but I feel really good in these moments.”
When he’s not playing tennis, Mensik is probably spending time with his Argentinian girlfriend in Valencia, Spain, where she lives—or learning a new sport: golf. “It’s just a hobby for when I have free time. I like to go out to relax. It’s not about how good I am; it’s more about being in nature and the calmness. Some days I can hit a driver very well. Some days I suck, but it’s golf—it’s quite fun.”
