With Sunday's final match looming, the competition is heating up at the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells — though several top US players are no longer feeling the fire after falling short in the Round of 16.
Unseeded 28-year-old Swiss contender Belinda Bencic claimed arguably the tournament's biggest upset thus far, with the wild card ousting world No. 3 Coco Gauff on Wednesday.
Despite Gauff taking the first set, 2020 Olympic champion Bencic prevailed, fighting through multiple medical timeouts to snag the win.
Fellow US standout No. 4 Jessica Pegula suffered a similar fate, losing to Ukraine’s No. 23 Elina Svitolina in a three-set match heavily impacted by three hours of rain delays on Tuesday.
With the 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 come-from-behind win, Svitolina advances to her first Indian Wells quarterfinals in six years.
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and defending Indian Wells champion No. 2 Iga Świątek continued their dominance through the Round of 16, with each booking their quarterfinals berth without dropping a single set at the tournament.
Bencic to face last-standing US player Madison Keys
Another US star stands between Bencic and Friday's semifinals, as 2025 Australian Open champ and freshly minted world No. 5 Madison Keys continues her winning form in California.
The endurance and tenacity that earned Keys her first-ever Grand Slam title is on display at Indian Wells, where she outlasted Belgium's No. 28 Elise Mertens after three back-and-forth sets on Monday before surviving a difficult battle against Croatia's No. 19-seed Donna Vekić in Wednesday’s Round of 16.
By winning the 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3 clash, Keys is now riding a 15-match victory streak into Thursday's quarterfinal.
"I kind of just started deciding I was going to go for a little bit more," she said afterwards. "Really happy to be able to get that match and get that win and play another match here."
How to watch Thursday's 2025 Indian Wells quarterfinals
Thursday's quarterfinal round kicks off with Świątek taking on China's 2024 Olympic champion No. 8-seed Qinwen Zheng in a gold-medal rematch at 2 PM ET.
Svitolina will take on No. 9-seed Mirra Andreeva at 4 PM ET, with Keys set to contend with Bencic at 5:10 PM ET.
Sabalenka will close out the round at 8 PM ET, when she'll face her first seeded opponent all tournament in No. 24-seed Liudmila Samsonova.
Live coverage of all matches will air on the Tennis Channel.
Top-ranked players cruised through the competition at the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells over the weekend, with few early-round upsets leaving the sport’s best firmly intact as the Round of 32 enters its second day.
Defending champion and world No. 2 Iga Świątek has put together the tournament's most dominant performance so far, with the Polish phenom dropping just four total games in her first two victories over France's Caroline Garcia and Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska.
On the other hand, several lower seeded players suffered early round losses.
Yastremska opened her Indian Wells account by ousting Tunisian star and world No. 32 Ons Jabeur 6-3, 6-1 in Friday's first round.
Meanwhile, Saturday saw Canada's No. 27 Leylah Annie Fernandez and the US's No. 18 Amanda Anisimova fall in three-set first-round battles with Romania's Jaqueline Cristian and Switzerland's Belinda Bencic, respectively.
Sunday's play went mostly according to seeding, with the lone second-round upset win going to Ukrainian Elina Svitolina. The world No. 23 player sent the US's No. 14 Danielle Collins packing with a 6-2, 6-4 defeat.
Top 5 players look to roll to the Round of 16
While Świątek and US standout No. 4 Jessica Pegula booked their Round of 16 spots on Sunday, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka as well as US stars No. 3 Coco Gauff and No. 5 Madison Keys will take the court for their second-round matchups on Monday afternoon.
Keys faces perhaps the toughest path to the trophy.
If the 2025 Australian Open champion clears Belgium's No. 28 Elise Mertens on Monday, she could face Gauff in an all-US quarterfinal on Wednesday.
Then, a potential date with 2024 US Open winner Sabalenka — who Keys defeated to secure her first-ever Grand Slam win — awaits in the tournament's penultimate round.
How to watch the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells
The conclusion of the tournament's second round is currently underway, with live coverage airing on the Tennis Channel.
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina upset top seed Iga Swiatek in a three-set thriller Tuesday at Wimbledon, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), 2-6.
A five-star performance 🌟@ElinaSvitolina defeats the world No.1 Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-2 to reach the semi-finals at #Wimbledon once again pic.twitter.com/l6nUu17KHj
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2023
Svitolina, who gave birth to her first child less than nine months ago, will advance to the semifinals in just her second Grand Slam tournament since her return. She becomes the third wild card to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon — and the first to do so in more than a decade.
Overall, Svitolina advances to her third career Grand Slam semifinal and second at Wimbledon. For Swiatek, the quarterfinals marks her career-best finish at Wimbledon.
Following the win, she gave credit to Swiatek, who has been vocal in her support for Ukraine during Russia’s invasion.
“Iga is not only a great champion, she’s an unbelievable person. She was one of the first ones that really helped Ukrainian people,” Svitolina said after the match. “It was a huge help for Ukraine. It’s not easy to play someone you share lots of good moments with.”
The former world No. 3, Svitolina won 82% of points on her first serve and 111 points total. She also won 70 service points and six of nine break points.
Svitolina’s upset win marked the second of two matches on the women’s singles side Tuesday. No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula also was upset in three sets, falling to Markéta Vondrousová.
Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina was booed at the French Open on Tuesday after refusing to shake the hand of her Belarusian opponent Aryna Sabalenka.
Sabalenka won the Grand Slam quarterfinal matchup in straight sets, then went to the net to shake the hand of her opponent. But Svitolina did not respond in kind, instead offering a thumbs up before she exited the court.
While Svitolina refused the handshake as an act of protest against the war in her home country, fans took issue with her snub of Sabalenka.
Aryna Sabalenka gets the better of Elina Svitolina to advance to the French Open semi-finals! 📈
— Eurosport (@eurosport) June 6, 2023
The two do not share a handshake at the net ❌#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/OR0SLzLJwZ
The lack of handshake is not a new response for Svitolina, who has refused to shake the hand of any Russian or Belarusian opponent since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war. And she isn’t the only Ukrainian player to do so.
“We are Ukrainians, we all unite for one goal, for the goal of winning this war, and we do everything what is regarding on this topic,” she said on June 2. “I’m Ukrainian. I’m standing for my country. I’m doing everything possible in the way to support. … I’m representing my country. I have a voice. I’m standing with Ukraine.”
When asked about the boos, Svitolina said that she doesn’t pay attention to it that much.
“I’m not going to please everyone. I have my position and I stick to it,” she said. “I’m not going to sell my country for people’s sympathy.”
When asked if she believed that Sabalenka going to wait at the net for a handshake “inflamed” the situation, Svitolina agreed that it had.
“I don’t know what she was waiting for at the net, because my statements were clear enough about the handshake. I was expecting boos, it was not a surprise for me,” she said.
Russian player Daria Kasatkina followed her match against Svitolina earlier in the tournament with a thumbs up and was booed for it. Kasatkina has been outspoken in her criticism of the war, and last month expressed sympathy for Ukrainian tennis players who refuse to shake her hand following matches.
“Really thankful for her position that she took. She’s [a] really brave person to say it publicly, that not so many players did,” Svitolina said after their matchup. “She’s a brave one.”
Following the match, Kasatkina called out the crowd for their booing on Twitter.
“Leaving Paris with a very bitter feeling. All this days, after every match I’ve played in Paris I always appreciate and thanked crowd for support and being there for the players,” Kasatkina tweeted Monday. “But yesterday I was booed for just being respectful on my opponent’s position not to shake hands.
“Me and Elina showed respect to each other after a tough match but leaving the court like that was the worse part of yesterday. Be better, love each other. Don’t spread hate. Try to make this world better.”
Coco Gauff advanced to the French Open quarterfinals for the third consecutive year with a straight-sets win over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
With the win, the 19-year-old reaches her fourth career Grand Slam quarterfinal, where she will face No. 1 Iga Swiatek. Swiatek earned a 6-3, 6-1 win over Gauff in the 2022 championship match at Roland-Garros.
In Monday’s match against Schmiedlova, Gauff overcame a scraped knee during a tense first set and went on to claim a 7-5, 6-2 victory.
Go, go Coco 🇺🇸#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/Z6d6ZoY4PF
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 5, 2023
While Gauff came out on top in her fourth-round match, fellow U.S. star Sloane Stephens fell to No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, on Sunday.
Sabalenka raced out to a 5-0 lead in the first set, and while Stephens battled back to force a tiebreak, the 25-year-old Belarusian still prevailed to reach her first French Open quarterfinal.
“I think it was just a few key moments which I didn’t finish right, and then she started to believe in herself a little bit more,” Sabalenka said. “People started to support her more. She kind of played with that crush and was like going for the shots. I think she played unbelievable tennis.”
The Belarusian isn’t the only one to make her first trip to the quarterfinals. Beatriz Haddad Maia advanced to her first quarterfinals by taking down Sara Sorribes Tormo, becoming the first Brazilian to reach the French Open quarterfinals since 1968.
The three-set match between Haddad Maia and Sorribes Tormo lasted 3 hours and 41 minutes, the longest of the season and third-longest women’s match ever at Roland-Garros.
Ons Jabeur is also making her first French Open quarterfinal after defeating Bernarda Pera in the fourth round. Including this tournament, Jabeur has made the quarterfinals in each Grand Slam in her career. And Karolína Muchová is also appearing her first French Open quarterfinal.
2023 French Open: Quarterfinals
- Tuesday, June 6
- Karolína Muchová vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova — 5 a.m. ET
- Elina Svitolina vs. Aryna Sabalenka — 6:30 a.m. ET
- Wednesday, June 7
- Coco Gauff vs. Iga Swiatek — TBD
- Beatriz Haddad Maia vs. Ons Jabeur — TBD
- All matches will be televised on the Tennis Channel.