History of the Indian Wells Masters

The Indian Wells Masters has a long history. This event developed from a competition held in Tucson, Arizona, USA in 1974. The tournament was originally a fund-raising event organized by the ATP. In 1976, the competition was moved to the Coachella Valley in California. After five successful years, in 1981, the competition venue was moved to the La Quinta Hotel. The following years saw many high-profile games, the most famous of which was when Yannick Noah ended Ivan Lendl's 44-game winning streak in 1982.

In 1987, the tournament moved to a stadium in Indian Wells, California. This newly built stadium can accommodate up to 10,000 people. In 1987, the event also began hosting women's competitions and became an official WTA tournament in 1989. The event received international attention after changing the venue in 1987, and officially became one of the ATP Masters Series (ATP Masters Series, the highest level event organized by ATP) in 1990. In 1996, the women's tournament was scheduled to be held at the same time as the men's tournament for the first time; in 1997, the Indian Wells Masters became one of the WTA Tier 1 (Tier 1, the highest level tournament organized by the WTA) tournaments.

While the competition was a huge success, in 2000, the competition venue was changed to the newly built Indian Wells Tennis Garden. And the main stadium of the event can accommodate 16,100 people to watch the game. Tournament prize money also increased dramatically in 2000. But in 2001, an unpleasant incident occurred in the Indian Wells women's game. Serena Williams was racially abused in the women's singles match, so the Williams sisters (Serena Williams and Weiner Williams) announced that he would boycott the competition and would not compete after 2001. From 2002 to 2008, the competition was sponsored by Pacific Life and was therefore named the Pacific Life Open. During this period, Swiss golf champion Roger Federer won three consecutive championships (2004-2006).

In 2009, the competition was renamed the BNP Paribas Open, and became the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and the WTA Crown Jewel in the reform of the ATP and WTA competition systems. In 2010, the competition held an exhibition match to raise funds for the Haiti earthquake. Many famous stars such as Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Steffi Graf, Justin Henin, etc. participated in the exhibition match.

Before being named the BNP Paribas Open, the men's competition was also named: American Airlines Tennis Games (1974–1978), Congoleum Classic (1979–1980, 1982 –1984), Grand Marnier/ATP Tennis Games (1981), Pilot Pen Classic (1985–1987), Newsweek Champions Cup (1988–1999), Tennis Masters Series Indian Wells Station (Tennis Masters Series Indian Wells, 2000–2001) and Pacific Life Open (2002–2008).

On the women's side, the tournament has also been known as: Virginia Slims of Indian Wells (1989–1990), Virginia Slims of Palm Springs (1991), Matrix Essentials Evert Cup (1992–1993), Evert Cup , 1994 and 1999), State Farm Evert Cup (1995–1998), Tennis Masters Series (2000–2001), and Pacific Life Open (2002–2008).