Maybe Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina should consider teaming up in mixed doubles moving forward.
Fritz and Rybakina looked like an unbeatable duo Tuesday evening at Indian Wells, topping Tommy Paul and Madison Keys, 10-4, to take the Eisenhower Cup Tie Break Tens exhibition title in front of a sold out Stadium 2 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
With the win, Fritz and Rybakina will split a $200,000 prize, with proceeds from the event being donated to local charities.
“It’s great to start the week off at home with this,” said Fritz, a Southern California native who in 2022 became the first American to win the BNP Paribas Open since 2001.
Rybakina won the 2023 BNP Paribas Open title and stepped into the slot next to Fritz that was vacated by top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka.
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It was also a promising evening for the Americans in the BNP Paribas Open, which begins with first-round men’s and women’s matches Wednesday. Several American men and women are in a prime position to win the Indian Wells title, at least according to the ATP and WTA rankings.
And if Tuesday’s exhibition gave us any sort of glimpse, the Americans came to Indian Wells this year ready to play.
While three of the four in the final were Americans, defending champions Ben Shelton and Emma Navarro reached the semifinals before losing to Fritz and Rybakina.
Paul and Keys topped Poland’s Iga Świątek and Herbert Hurkacz in the other semifinal, outlasting Australia’s Alex de Minaur and Britain’s Katie Boulter, Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti and Jasmine Paolini, American Amanda Anisimova and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev and Norway’s Casper Ruud and Greece’s Maria Sakkari.
Not that the night was all business. Most of the evening, in front of a mostly full stadium, was spent with players cracking jokes at each other with stadium host Andrew Krasny and Tennis Channel’s CoCo Vandeweghe.
Rybakina and Anisimova played rock-paper-scissors to determine who would serve first, and Świątek sat and ate a plate of sushi while waiting for one of the team’s matches to start.
We also learned that Ruud may have a future in comedy. He was hilarious when the microphone was put in front of him.
“It’s tough when you go up against the Australian Open champ and a model,” Ruud cracked after he and Sakkari lost to Paul and Keys. “The model got the best of us.”
