Sinner Wins Indian Wells To Complete Set Of Masters 1000 Hard-Court Titles

Jannik Sinner, BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells
Jannik Sinner (photo: BNP Paribas Open)

INDIAN WELLS/WASHINGTON, March 16, 2026 (by Michael Dickens)

When World No. 2 Jannik Sinner and World No. 11 Daniil Medvedev walked out to contest the championship match of the 50th BNP Paribas Open edition Sunday afternoon, under a searing sun that produced temperatures in the mid-90s (Fahrenheit), both were aiming to capture their first Indian Wells title.

While both competitors impressively marched to the final without losing a set – the first finalists to do so since Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer met for the 2015 title – one thing was certain: By the end of the afternoon, there would be a first-time IW champion in the California palm desert.

By the end of their one-hour, 55-minute title match, Sinner became just the third player to complete the set of six ATP Masters 1000 hard-court titles, joining Djokovic and Federer. The second seed from Italy defeated Medvedev 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4).

The 24-year-old Sinner, who arrived with a 10-match winning streak at ATP Masters 1000 level after winning the Paris Masters last November, rallied from down 0-4 in a second set tie-break to pull out the victory. Not only did he avoid having to play a decider against Medvedev, he became the first player to win back-to-back ATP Masters 1000 titles without losing a set since the series began in 1990 – and just the second player to win 22 consecutive sets at this level.

“I kept believing and kept pushing,” Sinner said during a brief on-court interview with ATP Media before the trophy ceremony. “I went for my shots a little more. A third set, we would have started even, so I tried my best to close it out and I am very happy. It was an incredible ending.”

Medvedev, who was appearing in his third Indian Wells final after losing twice, in 2023 and 2024 to Carlos Alcaraz, eliminated the 22-year-old World No. 1 in Saturday’s semifinal and brought a lot of confidence into the title match, where he aimed to capture his seventh ATP Masters 1000 crown – all at different events, to become the sixth player in series history to win seven different titles at this level.

However, by the end,  Sinner proved to be the steadier, hungrier player.

“It was a very, very tough match,” Sinner said. “It is great to see Daniil back playing this level. I am very happy. I came here from day one, training really hard and this result makes me very happy. Sharing this moment with the team and friends here is really special.”

Sinner finished the championship final with 28 winners to 31 unforced errors, won 91 percent (43 of 47) of his first-serve points, faced no break points and outpointed Medvedev 84-75. By comparison, Medvedev struck 15 winners – seven of them aces – and made 24 unforced errors. He won 77 percent (37 of 48) first-serve points and saved both break points he faced from Sinner.

“First of all, I’d like to congratulate Jannik,” Medvedev said during his runner-up speech. “Amazing tennis, tough to play against you. I tried my best. It was a good match. Big congrats to you for everything you’re doing.

“Whenever you play Carlos, I love to see it. Now, I was happy to not let Carlos play you again, but I love watching you guys, love watching you. Go for it, continue winning. Never stop and to your team as well.”

Medvedev upset Alcaraz, 6-3, 7-6 (3) in Saturday’s semifinals after Sinner took care of World No. 4 Alexander Zverev, 6-2, 6-4. The 30-year-old Russian No. 1 said it was “an amazing feeling” to beat the No. 1 player in the world. Medvedev’s victory ended Alcaraz’s 16-match winning streak, which began at the start of the 2026 season.

“In a way, when you play him, Jannik, Novak, doesn’t matter the ranking. It’s just a great feeling to play them, and to beat them, of course, is even better,” Medvedev said during his post-match news conference Saturday.

He added: “Maybe I play 10 matches against Carlos, probably I’m going to lose more than I’m going to win. But whenever I go on court, I need to believe in myself, I need to do my best, and try to win as much as I can.”

Alcaraz, for one, was impressed by Medvedev. “Since the start of the match until the end of the match, he was playing unreal,” he said during his post-match news conference Saturday. “I have never seen, to be honest, Daniil playing like this.”

When it was time for Sinner to speak during the awards ceremony, where he received the champion’s trophy from 2001 Indian Wells titlist Andre Agassi, he gave props to Medvedev. “First of all, I want to start with Daniil and your team. It’s great to see you back playing this kind of level. I know you practice very hard. You have a great team behind you. Keep going. Keep pushing. I wish you all the best for the rest of the season,” Sinner said. 

“Of course, my team, family and friends at home … I want to thank you for keep pushing me to the limits. We came very early to prepare for this. Now, it’s even more special holding this beautiful trophy. Thank you so much for all the support.”

By the end of the day, Sinner had improved his career head-to-head against Medvedev to 9-7. He’s won nine of their past 10 meetings. Next, he will head to the Miami Open with a 13-2 win-loss record to start 2026 – and with his first title victory since winning the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin last November. 

Meanwhile, Medvedev, who leads the ATP Tour in victories this season with 18, will re-enter the ATP Top 10 at No. 10 when the new PIF ATP Rankings are released on Monday. He’s already won two titles this season, at Brisbane and Dubai.

Sabalenka gains revenge on Rybakina, wins first IW title

Sunday’s BNP Paribas Open women’s final between World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and World No. 3 Elena Rybakina provided fans with a rematch of the 2023 Indian Wells final as well as of this year’s Australian Open final. Both of them were won by Rybakina. In fact, Rybakina had beaten Sabalenka in four-straight match finals, including the 2025 WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Rybakina’s victory over Sabalenka at Melbourne in January has been the only blemish for the 27-year-old from Belarus this season, who entered play with a 16-1 win-loss record. However, while Rybakina, 26, had previously found the right formula for beating Sabalenka, this time she wasn’t able to produce another title victory despite having a championship point during a decisive, third-set tiebreaker.

In the first Indian Wells women’s singles final between two players ranked in the Top Three since No. 1 Victoria Azarenka defeated No. 2 Maria Sharapova in 2012, Sabalenka rallied from down a set and a break and pulled through the title match with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) victory in two hours and 31 minutes to win her first Indian Wells title.

Playing in her third final in the last four years in Coachella Valley – finishing runner up to Rybakina in 2023 and to Mirra Andreeva in 2025 – Sabalenka secured her 10th career WTA 1000 title – and second WTA Tour title of the season after winning a 250-series event in Brisbane, Australia in January.

After Rybakina denied her of a third Australian Open crown, Sabalenka put together an impressive six-match winning streak at Indian Wells, winning all but one set. Her victory over Rybakina was her fourth Top-20 win of the tournament, after previously defeating No. 16 Naomi Osaka, No. 10 Victoria Mboko and No. 14 Linda Noskova to reach the final. 

Looking back, Sabalenka dug herself in a hole early. She lost the opening set after being broken in the sixth game, then surrendered the opening game of the second set. To her credit, she recovered nicely – never getting too down on herself – and went on to win the middle set to send the final to a decider. At 5-all in the third set, Rybakina saved five break points during an epic 12-minute, 18-point game. Then, after Sabalenka held, it was on to a tiebreaker to decide the championship, where the Belarusian had won a remarkable 26 of 29 tie-breaks since the start of last season.

At 3-all in the decisive tie-break, Rybakina broke to go ahead, then held serve for 5-3. Sabalenka got the mini break back after Rybakina struck a forehand return long. Then, she leveled matters at 5-all when the Russian-born Kazakh struck a sixth-shot backhand long. However, Rybakina broke with a brilliantly-placed backhand winner up the line that gave her a championship point at 6-5. Sabalenka promptly saved it with a demonstrative fourth-shot cross-court backhand winner to make the score 6-all.

After the changeover, as the match reached the two-and-a-half-hour mark, Sabalenka gained a championship point of her own at 7-6 and won the title with a powerful serve up the T that Rybakina returned long.

The Indian Wells crown is the 20th career title on hard courts for Sabalenka and it’s her 23rd title overall. Since the start of the US Open last August, Sabalenka has gone 30-3 – including 17-1 this season. She’s now 9-7 lifetime against Rybakina.

“I was dying there in the tiebreak, but I also saw that she was also not feeling her best. So I was trying to push myself basically to the limit,” Sabalenka said during her champion’s news conference.

“I’m super happy that in those last three points of the match, I was able to pull out really great tennis and get the win.”

As for Rybakina, the loss ended a 12-match winning streak against Top-10 players going back to last October. While she quietly went about her business of winning points with precision-like focus in the early going – hitting each ground stroke with purpose – her mental toughness that served her well in the early going was not enough to beat Sabalenka alone. Instead, Sabalenka benefited from an abundance of unforced errors by Rybakina. By the end, she was the steadier player.

“I think I started the match well. Then my level of energy dropped a lot. Of course, losing in the second set, it gives confidence also to your opponent,” Rybakina said during her post-match news conference.  “Well, as I say, third set, it was fight with the conditions, with the opponent, with yourself at some point. It wasn’t easy with such heat.”

Sabalenka hit 29 winners overall – including 10 aces – and made 31 unforced errors. She won 67 percent (40 of 60) of her first-serve points, saved six of nine break points and converted three of eight break-point chances. Sabalenka was outpointed by Rybakina 104-100. By contrast, Rybakina countered with 12 aces and 42 winners overall. She committed 35 unforced errors and won 63 percent (35 of 56) of her first-serve points.

During the trophy ceremony, Sabalenka was in a cheerful mood. She kept matters light and easy going in her remarks.

“What a day, it’s boiling hot, not sure if I can make sense right now,” Sabalenka said. “Congrats Elena on another great tournament, I really hope we’re going to face each other in the very last stages of tournaments and bring these battles on court.

“Thank God I got this trophy. … This is everything, this is the dream. … Last but not least, I want to thank my team for always being there, for always advising me the best things, for always supporting me no matter what and for listening to all the crap that I’m saying during matches. Thank you for being so strong, so proud of you guys.

“What a week: Getting engaged, getting a puppy and winning a title. I will definitely remember it for the rest of my life.”

Meanwhile, Rybakina tried to put a positive spin on her title defeat to Sabalenka.

“It was a very difficult match, and congratulations to Aryna and her team. Hopefully we will play very soon again in this stage of the tournament,” Rybakina said in accepting her runner-up trophy.

“Of course I want to say thank you to my team, not the result we wanted today but still, it’s been a good couple of weeks. We try to take the positives and move on to the next one.”

Now, following a brief period of celebration while flying across the country – and after earning more than $1.1 million in first-prize money – it’s on to the Miami Open for Sabalenka, where she’s the defending champion.

News & noteworthy

When Guido Andreozzi of Argentina and Manuel Guinard of France won the men’s doubles title Saturday night by defeating cousins Arthur Rinderknech of France and Valentin Vacherot of Monaco 7-6 (3), 6-3, it marked not only their first ATP Masters 1000 title but their first ATP Title at any level since forming as a team last year at the US Open. 

Since then, Andreozzi, 34, and Guinard, 30, have compiled a respectable 21-12 win-loss record as a team (10-5 this season). Indian Wells was their second final following Metz last year in an ATP 250 indoor hard-court event.

“It’s been an amazing week for us. I think every match we were playing like better and better. Yeah, the best way to end the week is with a trophy,” Andreozzi said.

“It’s my first 1000, and I’m really happy, and I’m really happy to share this title with Manu. Yeah, we’ll keep going.”

Added Guinard: “Yeah, same for me. I’m really happy about all the work we have put in the last few months, and especially the last week. The week before, like, we started to think a little bit more about the doubles game really deeply, and it worked right away.

“So I’m really happy about this work and ready to move forward for the next couple of tournaments.”

With their Indian Wells title secured, Andreozzi and Guinard will move up to No. 4 in the PIF ATP Doubles Teams Rankings on Monday.

By the numbers

The Daniil Medvedev–Jannik Sinner men’s title match marked the fourth time in tournament history both players did not lose a set en route to the final. It’s the first time since Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer met in the 2015 final. By winning, Sinner has completed the set of titles at all six hard-court ATP Masters 1000 events.

“Quotable …”

“I just think that Kat and I just really enjoyed every match that we played. I mean, I actually looked at the draw and, I was, like, ‘Our draw is really tough.’

“But we played some great teams. I think today especially we came out with a little extra motivation. I went to Kat, and I was, like, ‘I need a hug.’ I was crying in the locker room because I was sad that I was missing my son’s birthday. And she was, like, ‘Okay, we do this for A.J.’

“So, we were really together today as a team and really lifted each other up and just had fun. We enjoyed the moment. Every match that we played this week, we knew what we were going to do, but we came and we said, ‘We’re going to enjoy it, and we’re going to have fun. We’re going to smile, and no matter, whether we make a mistake or whatever, we’re just going to have fun and enjoy it.’

“And, so, I really think we did that today. This was the calmest that I have felt in a final in a long time. So, we really just came together and played our game. Especially Kat, you know, in those tough moments, really came through and put the body on the line this whole week to get the title. So it means a lot to me, especially.”

– Taylor Townsend of the United States, during her post-match news conference, after she and Katerina Siniakova of Czechia won the women’s doubles title on Saturday.

 

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