Stadium One, the main court at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, is the second largest court in the world, behind the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.[3]
The 2011 BNP Paribas Open took place at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden from 7 to 20 March 2011. It was the 36th edition of the event.[3] The tournament was jointly run by the Tennis Ventures Llc and was part of the 2011 ATP World Tour and the 2011 WTA Tour.[4] On the ATP tour it was the first of the seasons Masters 1000 events;[5] on the women's tour it was the season's first of four Premier Mandatory events.[3] The tournament was conducted on eight outdoor Plexipave IW courts.[6][7] This has been given a medium–slow court speed.[8][9]
The semifinals were a repeat of the 2009 US Open semis. It was also the first time since 1995 that all four players to reach this stage were Grand Slam champions. En route to the semifinal stage Djokovic broke the record of his Final opponent Nadal for the fewest games lost in the history of Indian Wells Masters as well as in the masters series based on four matches. He lost only 12 games to Golubev, Gulbis, Troicki, Gasquet respectively while Nadal lost 13 in the 2010 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters. In Indian Wells Stefan Edberg held the previous record with 17 lost games while reaching the 1990 final.[10] The results of the matches were a reverse of the US Open as Djokovic and Nadal won.[11]
Before their quarter final match, Azarenka and Wozniacki led the crowd in a spontaneous tribute to the people of Japan, leading a period of silence as they came out on court with a Japanese flag. The players wrote on the flag a message for Japan; 'Our Thoughts Are With You.' The match itself only lasted three games as Azaerenka had to retire with a hip injury.[12]
In the semifinals Bartoli created history as she became the first French woman to reach the final in Indian Wells. Bartoli reached the final losing just four games against Wickmayer.[13] In the other half of the draw Wozniacki was equally dominant losing three games to Sharapova.[14]
In the first round all the seeds made it safely through apart from second seeds Peschke and Srebotnik, who lost 10–5 in a match tiebreaker. To make it worse, Srebotnik took a hit to the eye leaving her with impaired vision for the rest of the match.[16] While King and Shevdova won their first match back as a pairing and Bethanie Mattek–Sands pulled off a spectacular 'tweener' for a winner. The second round saw the World Number Ones, Dulko and Pennetta, exit the tournament.[17] Also exiting in the second round was the Chang and Zheng;[18] and number seven seeds Benesova and Strycova, who lost to Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina.[19]
The quarterfinals witnessed Hantuchová and Radwańska losing just one game against the reigning Wimbledon and US Open champions, while the third seeds Huber and Petrova exited in straight sets to Mettek–Sands and Shaughnessy.[20] Azarenka and Kirilenko were responsible for sending home the wild card team of Jankovic and Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets.[21] Mirza and Vesnina lost just four games against Hantuchová and Radwańska in the semifinals, whilst Mattek–Sands and Shaughnessy received a walkover against Azarenka and Kirilenko, due to a hip injury sustained by Azarenka.[22] In the final Mirza and Vesnina lost just five games to win the title without dropping a set throughout the tournament.[23]
The 2011 BNP Paribas Open was the first tournament to have hawkeye technology used on more than three courts. Many tournaments before have had the technology on their show courts (usually only three courts at the Grand Slams) but the Indian Wells Tennis Garden had hawkeye on all eight of its courts.[24]
Novak Djokovic[1]
Caroline Wozniacki
Alexandr Dolgopolov / 
Xavier Malisse[2]
Sania Mirza / 
Elena Vesnina
