LAS VEGAS — Need a warm-up event to prepare for Indian Wells?
How about coming to Vegas and playing for a million dollars?
The BNP Paribas Open begins on Wednesday. It is considered by many who cover and follow tennis to be the sport’s “fifth Grand Slam.” All the top players are expected to participate in the two-week event at the Indian Hills Tennis Garden.
This includes Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Reilly Opelka. On Sunday, the three Americans were at T-Mobile Arena perfecting their game and trying to bring home some loot en route to California.
The American trio was joined by Norwegian Casper Ruud, Brazilian Joao Fonseca, Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik and French veterans Gael Monfis and Nick Kyrgios of Australia.
Opelka, the 28-year-old from Florida, met Fonseca in the best-of-three championship and the 19-year-old Brazilian’s shooting and tenacity were too much. He won three matches, beating Opelka 10-6, 7-10, 10-5 and taking home the winner’s share of $300,000.
Mind you, he’s not old enough to gamble in a casino, but he could probably treat himself to a nice dinner at one of the nice restaurants on the Strip.
“I think I have a pretty good mentality,” Fonseca said of the format. “I try to focus my routine and focus on every shot. You can’t adjust a lot. You just have to go play and focus on that.”
Opelka, who earned $200,000 as a runner-up on Sunday, said of the event: “It’s a nice little change. It’s like a mini vacation before Indian Wells. Playing pressure points like you do in tiebreakers is hard to replicate in practice, so it definitely helps you prepare.”
It was a quick format – 10-point tiebreaker, single elimination. And while no one wants to play catch-up, a 10-point game instead of the usual seven-point tiebreak at least gives you a chance to rally and get back in the game.
This was not the case with Paul. He fell behind 6-1 and Fritz quickly put him away, winning 10-3 to advance to the second round.
“In this kind of format, you don’t want to give free points to your opponent,” Fritz said in his post-match interview.
Fritz met the 6-foot-11 Opelka in the second round after Opelka survived a tough match with Ruud. Opelka hit two aces and used virtually every shot in his arsenal to put the Norwegian star away 10-8.
Fritz gave up too many points and found himself trailing 7-4. It closed to 7-6, but Opelka mixed things up and took the final three points to advance to the championship.
Fonseca won seven of the last eight points in his match against Monfils and beat the Frenchman 10-6. He met Bublik, a 10-8 winner against Kyrgios. Bublik, who was playing last week in the United Arab Emirates, was able to leave Dubai before the airspace was closed following Iran’s attack on the United Arab Emirates, and probably did not hesitate to lose in the round of 16 at the Dubai Tennis Championships on February 25. This allowed him to leave the Middle East before things got heated.
He trailed 5-0 against the Australian before rallying with six straight points and eventually held off Kyrgios to advance.
But he wasn’t so lucky against Fonseca, who led 5-0 and won five of the last six points to advance 10-3. Still, you better worry about bombs being dropped on your hotel in Dubai.
“I wasn’t aware of what was happening,” Bublik said. “I was on the plane and then the wifi came on and I saw the news. I had about 25 messages. So I was happy to get out.”
