The Indian Wells Masters (now sponsored by BNP Paribas and officially called the BNP Paribas Open) is an annual tennis tournament held in Indian Wells, California, United States.
The tournament is a Masters 1000 event on the men's tour and is a Premier Mandatory event on the women's tour having as main sponsor the French bank BNP Paribas. Between 1974 and 1990 it was a major tournament of the Grand Prix Tennis Tour and part of the Grand Prix Championship Series. The event, held in March, is one of two tour events (besides the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida) in which main draw play extends beyond eight days. The women's main draw usually starts on Wednesday and the men's main draw starts on Thursday. Both finals are held on Sunday of the following week. Both singles main draws include 96 players in a 128-player grid, with the 32 seeded players getting a bye to the second round.
The tournament is played on hard courts and is the best attended tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slam tournaments, with over 370,000 visitors during the event. It has the second largest tennis stadium in the world.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Life is fountain of joy; but where the rabble also gather to drink, all wells are poisoned.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)