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Fireworks were already expected in the BNP Paribas Open doubles tournament, with many new-look, star-powered teams joining the ATP Tour's standard-bearers in a loaded 32-team field. Tuesday's draw added to the buzz, setting several marquee matchups at the year's first ATP Masters 1000 in Indian Wells.

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Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov, who partnered to help Team Canada win the 2022 ATP Cup, join forces again in the desert and face an immediate blockbuster matchup with #NextGenATP stars Holger Rune and Ben Shelton. Rune and Shelton are teaming for the first time after they squared off on the singles court last week in Acapulco, with Rune winning in three sets.

"I think he's a super fun guy," Rune said of Shelton following their meeting, calling the American's serve one of the toughest he's faced. "I like the way he plays tennis. I think it will be fun. It's going to be nice to be the one at the net after his big serve."

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In 2018, Stefanos Tsitsipas announced himself to the world when he captured the Next Gen ATP Finals title. Since then, the Greek has constantly made his mark on Tour, winning the Nitto ATP Finals crown in 2019 and capturing two ATP Masters 1000 trophies.

Driven to reach the top, the 24-year-old Netflix Break Point star is determined to keep evolving on and off court.

“I don't want to waste a single day of my life being stagnant or staying still and not elevating myself through experiences,” Tsitsipas said. “I have a fear of missing out and I don’t want people to know me only for my tennis. Life is about adventures, life is about creating beautiful memories.”

To dare it, to dream it, to do it ?

Get to know what it all means for @steftsitsipas ✨ pic.twitter.com/pfHUN41a1k

Having established himself as a consistent member of the Top 10, Tsitsipas now wants to make an impact away from tennis. In recent years, the Greek has produced music and made video diaries, documenting his travel exploits.

Jenson Brooksby underwent arthroscopic left wrist surgery on Tuesday in California to repair his tendon subsheath. The American’s tendon was 100 per cent dislocated.

The successful surgery, performed by Dr. Steven Shin, will keep Brooksby off court for 10 to 12 weeks. He plans to use the time to work on other areas of his game and be fully ready once healthy enough to return to tennis.

“I knew it was something that was pretty bad and I’d have to miss some time,” Brooksby said. “I tried to take the conservative route with it but it was to no avail. There was still a lot of pain and it’s the last option, so it’s just what I have to do now.”

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The injury has bothered Brooksby for two years, but it has been getting worse since December. When he played Cameron Norrie in Auckland, the American was forced to slice his backhand throughout the second set. Brooksby did not hit backhands again until the day before his first-round match at the Australian Open.

Carlos Alcaraz controls his own destiny in the battle for No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings over the course of the next two weeks. If the Spaniard wins the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, he will return to the top spot on 20 March.

If World No. 2 Alcaraz does anything less than lift the trophy at the season’s first ATP Masters 1000 event, Novak Djokovic will remain World No. 1 on 20 March.

Alcaraz last September became the youngest World No. 1 in the history of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. The 19-year-old maintained the position for 20 weeks and finished as year-end World No. 1.

View Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings

Should Alcaraz get to No. 1 by winning Indian Wells, holding onto top spot won’t be easy. Dropping 1,000 points entering Miami, the Spaniard would need to successfully defend his title at Hard Rock Stadium to remain at No. 1 at the conclusion of the 'Sunshine Swing’.

The 2023 ATP Masters 1000 action kicks off this fortnight in Indian Wells, California, where the ATP Tour’s finest compete at the BNP Paribas Open from 8-19 March.

Carlos Alcaraz, who will return to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings with a title run, is the top seed. Stefanos Tsitsipas, the in-form Daniil Medvedev and defending champion Taylor Fritz are also among the contenders at 'Tennis Paradise', the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

ATPTour.com looks at 10 things to watch at the first ATP Masters 1000 event of the year.

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Tennis fans who have enjoyed an unprecedented look at life on the ATP Tour and Hologic WTA Tour through the groundbreaking docu-series Break Point are in for a double treat after Netflix today announced that it had commissioned Series 2 of the show to air in 2024.

Part 1 of Break Point premiered in January, with Part 2 (episodes 6-10) to follow this June. Executive producers Paul Martin and James Gay-Rees from Box to Box Films will continue to helm the show.

Break Point follows a select group of top tennis players on and off the court as they compete in the biggest and most gruelling events in tennis with hopes of emerging as champion and even bigger dreams of becoming World No. 1. As some of the greatest players tennis has ever seen reach the twilight of their careers, there is room for a new generation of players to claim the spotlight.

Break Point gets up close and personal with these top players on tour through an entire year, travelling across the globe for all four Grand Slams and the ATP Tour and Hologic WTA Tour. From injuries and emotional heartbreak, to triumphant victories and personal moments off the court, viewers get a behind-the-scenes look at the pressure-tested lives of these pro tennis players.

Netflix also announced today that it has commissioned Series 2 of the PGA Tour docu-series Full Swing, which premiered in February.

Fifth seed Daniil Medvedev comes into the BNP Paribas Open as the hottest player on the ATP Tour and the fifth seed will need to be on his game early at the year’s first ATP Masters 1000 event to extend his 14-match winning streak.

Drawn in the same half as second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, third seed Casper Ruud and sixth seed Andrey Rublev, Medvedev faces a testing opening match against the winner of 2012 Indian Wells finalist John Isner, whose fearsome serve gets extra bite in the dry desert conditions, and Next Gen ATP Finals champion Brandon Nakashima.

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Medvedev, who beat Rublev in last Saturday’s Dubai final to cap a hat-trick of titles that also included Rotterdam and Doha, is seeded to meet Alexander Zverev in the fourth round. The German last week returned to form with a semi-final run in Dubai.

Top seed and 2022 semi-finalist Carlos Alcaraz, who will return to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings should he win his third Masters 1000 title this fortnight, leads the top half of the draw and in his opening match will face the winner of American wild card Brandon Holt and a qualifier. The Spaniard missed last week’s ATP 500 event in Acapulco with a right leg injury.

A number of the world’s leading coaches, players and sports scientists, including Toni Nadal, Gilles Cervara, Magnus Norman and Tommy Haas will meet for the third World Tennis Conference, to be held virtually from 30 March – 2 April.

Organised by the Global Professional Tennis Coaches Association (GPTCA) and the Segal Institute, WTC3 will feature 68 speakers from 28 countries, including ATP World No. 1 players, Grand Slam champions and tennis legends. The event’s third edition continues its effort to connect the world’s top high-performance tennis coaches and sports scientists with other coaches and people around the world.

Visit World Tennis Conference Website To Sign Up

The four-day programme is thoughtfully designed to raise the level of understanding surrounding player development, while helping ambitious tennis coaches develop. The conference is dedicated to education, training and assisting professional tennis coaches globally — whether they work in a local club or are travelling on the ATP and WTA Tours.

A star-studded line up will see Pat Cash, Frederic Fontang, Brad Gilbert, Wolfgang Thiem, Liam Smith, Craig O’Shannessy, Jordi Vilaro and Neal Skupski give speeches during the event.

French teen Luca Van Assche and Australian Max Purcell etched their names into the ATP Challenger Tour record books this week.

Van Assche, 18, saved two championship points against countryman Ugo Humbert to win the longest Challenger final in history (three hours, 56 minutes) at the Terega Open Pau Pyrenees. Purcell extended his winning streak to 15 by triumphing for a third consecutive week in India. American Aleksandar Kovacevic also collected a title of his own at the Texas Tennis Classic.

In the Pau Challenger 125 final in southern France, home hope Van Assche rallied from a double break down at 0-3 in the final set and again from 4/6 in the deciding-set tie-break before winning four consecutive points to survive Humbert 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(6) and capture his second Challenger title.

“It was a crazy match, an amazing fight against Ugo,” Van Assche said. “I’m very happy. A lot of emotions during this match. I was leading, then losing. I was match point up, then match point down. It was a fantastic match with great support from the crowd.

An action-packed week featuring events on three continents ended with Alex de Minaur, Daniil Medvedev and Nicolas Jarry lifting ATP Tour titles in Acapulco, Dubai and Santiago, respectively.

ATPTour.com looks at the movers of the week in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings as of 6 March 2023.

View Pepperstone ATP Rankings

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No. 18 Alex de Minaur, +4
A pair of stirring comebacks earned the Australian the biggest title of his career at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC. De Minaur dropped the first set in both the semi-finals against Holger Rune and the final against Tommy Paul, but stayed rock-solid to turn around both matches and claim his maiden ATP 500 crown. The 24-year-old has jumped four spots to No. 18 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings as a result, his highest ranking since August 2021 and just three shy of his career high. Read Acapulco Final Report & Watch Highlights.

One of the stories of the year in all of sports came in February when Matija Pecotic, the 33-year-old Director of Capital Markets for a real estate investment company, stunned former Top 10 star Jack Sock at the Delray Beach Open. The Croatian took the tennis world by storm after surging from qualifying, where he was an alternate, to the second round of the main draw.

Following from across the Atlantic Ocean was Marcus Willis, tennis’ original Hollywood script writer, who is making a comeback in doubles. In 2016, the lefty battled through Wimbledon pre-qualifying and then defeated Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev in qualifying to reach the main draw. After the World No. 772 stunned Ricardas Berankis in the first round, Willis played Roger Federer on centre court, losing in straight sets.

“I was just happy. It’s a weird thing. I was just happy for the guy more than anything. It’s nice in sport, in tennis, when stuff like this happens. A lot of guys get to 200 and don’t have that break,” Willis told ATPTour.com of Pecotic. “His life is really interesting right now.”

Pecotic climbed as high as No. 206 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings in 2015. But after suffering from a staph infection, attending Harvard Business School and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he traded hopes of a full-time career for a desk at the office. Willis is one of few people who can understand the whirlwind the Croatian went through in Delray Beach.

“He got significantly higher than I did in the singles rankings. So in a way, it’s not that I didn’t deserve it because I had the ability, but he really deserved that. He got lucky because he got in, but I saw that story and it took me back a little bit,” Willis said. “I think you can be misled sometimes. Certainly with my story… a lot of people sort of got the impression that I was just a random tennis coach who decided to sign up for Wimbledon one day.

The cries reverberated through the Santiago night countless times over the course of nearly three hours on Sunday.

“Ole! Ole, Ole, Ole! Nico! Nico!”

Those chants were for Santiago-native Nicolas Jarry, who rewarded his many fans with a performance to remember. The Chilean won the Movistar Chile Open with a memorable 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-2 victory over Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

"It's really unbelievable. I can't believe that I'm champion in this historic tournament of my family," Jarry said after the match with his infant son in his arms. "It means a lot to me, especially for the two weeks in a row. It's been very tough and I managed to keep on going this week. It's been amazing."

Jarry won his last four matches of the tournament in three sets and rallied from a set down in his final three clashes to claim his second ATP Tour title (also 2019 Bastad). After reaching the semi-finals last week in Rio de Janeiro and lifting the trophy at home, he will climb to No. 52 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, 100 spots higher than he started the season.

Jiri Lehecka began the 2022 season as the No. 141 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. Little did the Czech know that 14 months later, he would be one of the most dangerous players on the ATP Tour.

Plenty of people have taken notice of the 21-year-old, who is into the world’s Top 50 after advancing to the Australian Open quarter-finals and the Doha semi-finals. One of those people is former World No. 4 Tomas Berdych, who spent a couple days with his countryman in Dubai.

“He’s very young. But what I’ve seen, it’s really the way he’s composed with his game. I think it’s very good,” Berdych told ATP Media in Dubai. “What I like is his fitness preparation or his body being strong and some of the young kids, they might struggle with it. They need more muscles or lack power. That’s definitely not his case, which I like.”

Watch Lehecka Train With Berdych:

Berdych even compared Lehecka to himself, calling his game and that of the 2022 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up “very similar”. That is high praise from a man who earned 640 tour-level wins and 13 titles during his illustrious career.

For the second straight night in Acapulco, Alex de Minaur stormed back after losing the opening set against a red-hot opponent. On Saturday, his effort against Tommy Paul earned him the seventh and biggest title of his career at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC.

The Australian claimed his first ATP 500 crown with a battling 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory, his heart and staying power again making the difference in the Acapulco humidity.

"It feels great, it feels amazing," De Minaur said just before the trophy ceremony. "I know the hard work that's put in to be here and it's good to see the results. It's not always that you win the tournament and you get to finish a week unbeaten, so I'll definitely cherish this going into Indian Wells and Miami."

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After methodically working his way back into the match in set two, De Minaur landed what proved to be a decisive blow by saving five break points in a marathon five-deuce game to open the final set. When De Minaur fought off those chances with a combination of big serves and steely baseline play, Paul could not recover as the Aussie rattled off seven straight games.

After being two points from defeat in their opening match at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC, Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler finished the week with another dramatic win to claim the doubles title in Acapulco. It is the third ATP Tour title for the team and their first outside of their native Austria.

The Austrians edged Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow 7-6(9), 7-6(3) in Saturday's final, saving six set points in the opening set and another in the second.

"It feels great," said the 26-year-old Miedler. "After winning both titles in Austria, that was our next goal, to win one somewhere else. Mexico will always be in our hearts."

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After missing out on a set point at 5-4 in the first set, Erler/Miedler erased a 2/6 deficit in the tie-break and fought off two further set points at 8/9 before claiming the set. They denied Lammons/Withrow as the Americans attempted to serve out the second set at 5-4, saving a set point at 40/40, and never trailed in the second tie-break.

Andrea Pellegrino and Andrea Vavassori won a dramatic doubles final on Saturday to claim the Movistar Chile Open title in their team debut. The Italians saved a match point at 9/10 in a Match Tie-break before closing out a 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 victory against Thiago Seyboth Wild and Matias Soto.

A single break of serve decided both sets before Pellegrino/Vavassori battled back from 0/3 in the Match Tie-break, building an 8/5 lead and ultimately clinching victory on their second match point.

"It was incredible winning with one of my closest friends," the 27-year-old Vavassori said after claiming his second tour-level title. "We are like brothers, so winning a title like this is something special. We worked a lot with my coach and also with my father in the past three months."

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Pellegrino, 25, won his first ATP Tour trophy in his first final.

Tomas Martin Etcheverry continued his breakout week in Santiago by notching his second Top 50 win in three days at the Movistar Chile Open. In Saturday's semi-finals, the 23-year-old defeated third seed and fellow Argentine Sebastian Baez 7-5, 6-3 to advance to his first ATP Tour title match.

"Really I can't believe it," Etcheverry said of the milestone moment. "This is a dream for me, for my family, for my friends, all the people that helped me to reach my goals. This is amazing. Just [will try] to enjoy tomorrow. That's the key for my first final."

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Playing in his first tour-level semi-final, Etcheverry did not face a break point. In a tight opening set, the World No. 76 created the first break points of the match at 0/40 with Baez serving to force a tie-break, ultimately securing the set on his fifth set point. Etcheverry needed only one break point in the second, in its fourth game, to claim a decisive advantage.

"It was incredible today. Also like yesterday," said Etcheverry, who lost three games in his Friday quarter-fnal win against Dusan Lajovic. "It was my first semi-final today so I tried to play aggressive, the same like in the other matches. Right now I feel a lot of confidence that I can play like this. Hopefully tomorrow I continue like this because I've been playing at a good level this week."

Daniil Medvedev completed an ATP Tour hat-trick Saturday when he overcame Andrey Rublev 6-2, 6-2 to win the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

The third seed, who ended Novak Djokovic’s unbeaten start to the season in the semi-finals, produced a consistent performance throughout the 68-minute clash to extend his winning streak to 14 matches. Having lifted trophies in Rotterdam and Doha in February, Medvedev is the third player to win three titles in as many weeks since 2021, joining Casper Ruud (July 2021) and Felix Auger-Aliassime (October 2022).

"It is amazing because at the start of the year, it was not perfect. In tennis when you don't win matches you have doubts. Now it just feels better," Medvedev said. "I was really happy with these three weeks and I am looking forward to the next ones."

The 27-year-old’s strong hard-court form has lifted him to No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, rising above Rublev, who drops to No. 7. With his Tour-leading 19th win of the season, Medvedev improved to 5-2 in his ATP Head2Head series against the 25-year-old Rublev.

"It was very tactical [match]," Medvedev said. "I know Andrey can cause a lot of trouble to everyone on Tour. Every time we play he tries to make me suffer, I try to make him suffer. Today I managed to be on top, but the next match could be a different story."

Maxime Cressy and Fabrice Martin capped their debut week as a team in style Saturday when they defeated third seeds Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara 7-6(2), 6-4 at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

The American-French tandem rallied from a break down in the first set, while they hit 14 aces and saved both break points they faced to triumph after one hour and 25 minutes at the ATP 500 event.

Teaming for the first time this week, Cressy and Martin defeated Australian Open finalists Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski in the first round, before moving past Robin Haase and Matwe Middelkoop and Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen.

[ATP APP]

The Dubai title is Cressy’s first tour-level doubles crown. The 25-year-old lifted his maiden ATP Tour singles title in Newport last year. It is Martin’s eighth tour-level trophy but first since 2021, when he triumphed with Nicolas Mahut in Antwerp.

After storming through the first three rounds with the loss of eight games, Alex de Minaur had to do it the hard way against Holger Rune in the Acapulco semi-finals.

In a match that started on Friday night and carried on until nearly 3 a.m. Saturday morning, the Aussie outlasted his opponent in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC. While Rune was electric in the early stages, he struggled physically in the final set as De Minaur's staying power pushed him through the finish line after two hours and 48 minutes.

"It feels great. It feels like I deserved it," the Aussie said after advancing to his 11th ATP Tour final, where he will face Tommy Paul. "I hung in there, I stayed tough.

"[I had to] stay with him. It's not easy because he's a hell of a player. He was hitting me off the court at times and not letting me really do much. But I managed to save a couple of crucial break points and keep giving myself chances... I took the one chance I [converted] and rolled with it."

Watch the Acapulco final from 4 am CET/10 pm ET