Tien and Fonseca Receive BNP Paribas Open Wild Cards; ITF J300 Indian Wells Acceptances Feature Top Americans; USTA Announces Increased Tennis Participation for Fifth Consecutive Year

After a week in Dallas at the ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor Championships, I'll need some time to recover from all the excitement before I head off to the big Southern California junior swing, which begins in less than three weeks.

That begins for me at Indian Wells, for the second week's ITF J300 there, but several wild cards were announced today for the BNP Paribas Open men's and women's singles championships, which begin two weeks from today.

For the second straight year, Venus Williams has received a wild card, with the 44-year-old returning to competition after playing just two matches in 2024.  Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, 34, who is returning to the tour after the birth of her first child, is the other women's singles wild card announced today.

In contrast, the two men's wild cards announced today have a combined age seven year less than Williams, with 2024 Next Gen finalists Learner Tien and Joao Fonseca making their main draw debuts at the BNP Paribas Open. Tien, then a 17-year-old freshman at USC, played a match in the qualifying draw in 2023, losing to Cristian Garin of Chile 7-5, 7-6(7).

As for the ITF J300 in Indian Wells, which begins March 10th, the acceptances were released yesterday, with many Americans at the top of the ITF junior rankings entered. While the tournament is open to juniors from all countries for the second straight year, Americans still dominate the acceptances, because the international players (with the exception of Canadians) are not allowed to enter the J300 in San Diego the following week. But this year, at least at the outset, there are a few more international players in the field, including Top 20 boys Alan Wazny of Poland and William  Rejchtman Vinciguerra of Sweden.

The US girls at the top of the acceptance list are Kristina Penickova, Kaitlyn Rolls, Annika Penickova, Julieta Pareja and Maya Iyengar. The other American girls currently in the main draw are Capucine Jauffret, Thea Frodin, Leena Friedman, Aspen Schuman, Claire An, Ishika Ashar, Ava Rodriguez, Nancy Lee, Shannon Lam, Anita Tu and Maria Aytoyan. The cutoff ranking for main draw is 129.

The three US boys currently in the ITF Top 10—Jagger Leach, Jack Kennedy and Australian Open finalist  Benjamin Willwerth— have entered. Americans joining them in the boys field, which has a cutoff of 125, are Keaton Hance, Ryan Cozad, Noah Johnston, Maximus Dussault, Jack Secord, Jack Satterfield, Lachlan Gaskell, Calvin Baierl, Mattise Farzam, Ronit Karki, Gavin Goode, Yubel Ubri, Simon Caldwell, Jordan Lee, Roshan Santhosh and Nischal Spurling. 

The USTA sent out a release today highlighting a fifth consecutive year of increased participation in the sport in this country, and announced $10 million in grants for building and refurbishing courts to help facilities meet that demand. 

For more information on this, as well as the USTA's Safe Play program, see this article from usta.com.