The Indian Wells Masters, also known as BNP Paribas Open and the WTA Indian Wells

Open, is an annual tennis tournament held in March at the Indian Wells Tennis
Garden in Indian Wells, California, United States.

Current owner Larry Ellison, CTO and co-founder of Oracle, purchased the tournament
and the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in December 2009. The current tournament
director is former no. 2 player Tommy Haas.

The tournament is a Masters 1000 event on the men's tour and is a Premier Mandatory
event on the women's tour. Between 1974 and 1986 it was a secondary tournament of
the Grand Prix Tennis Tour but in 1987 it was upgraded to be part of the Grand Prix
Super Series, the series of nine tournaments just below the four majors and the
year-end final in importance. It took the place of the Philadelphia Indoor event as
the first Super Series event of the year. The event, held in March, is one of two
tour events (along with the Miami Open), other than the Majors, in which main draw
play extends beyond eight days. The women's main draw usually starts on Wednesday
and the men's main draw starts on Thursday. Both finals are held on Sunday of the
following week. Both singles main draws include 96 players in a 128-player grid,
with the 32 seeded players getting a bye (a free pass) to the second round.

The tournament is played on hard courts and is the best-attended tennis tournament
outside the four Grand Slam tournaments, with over 450,000 visitors during the 2015
event.[1] It has the second-largest permanent tennis stadium in the world (the
Arthur Ashe stadium being the largest).he tournament was founded by former tennis
pros Charlie Pasarell and Raymond Moore.

The men's tournament was previously called

The American Airlines Tennis Games (1974�1978),
The Congoleum Classic (1979�1980, 1982�1984),
The Grand Marnier/ATP Tennis Games (1981),
The Pilot Pen Classic (1985�1987),
The Newsweek Champions Cup (1988�1999),
The Tennis Masters Series Indian Wells (2000�2001), and
The Pacific Life Open (2002�2008).
The women's tournament was previously called
The Virginia Slims of Indian Wells (1989�1990),
The Virginia Slims of Palm Springs (1991),
The Matrix Essentials Evert Cup (1992�1993),
The Evert Cup (1994, 1999),
The State Farm Evert Cup (1995�1998) in honor of Chris Evert,
The Tennis Masters Series (2000�2001), and
The Pacific Life Open (2002�2008).
Originally the women's tournament was held a week before the men's event. In 1996,
the championship became one of the few fully combined events on both the
Association of Tennis Professionals and Women's Tennis Association tours.

The BNP Paribas Open has become one of the largest events on both men's and women's
tour. In 2004 it expanded to a multi-week 96 person field, and since then it along
with the following Miami Open have been colloquially termed the Sunshine Double.
Dubbed the "Grand Slam of the West",[5][6] it is the most-attended tennis
tournament in the world other than the four Majors.

In 2009, the tournament and the Indian Wells Tennis Garden were sold to Larry
Ellison.[7][8]

Williams sisters controversy

Further information: Williams sisters � Boycott of the Indian Wells Masters
Venus and Serena Williams, two very successful American players, refused to play
the Indian Wells tournament from 2001 to 2014 despite threats of financial
sanctions and rating point penalties. The two were scheduled to play in the 2001
semifinal but Venus withdrew due to an injury. Amid speculation of match fixing,
the crowd for the final loudly booed Serena when she came out to play the final and
continued to boo her intermittently through the entire match, even to the point of
cheering unforced errors and double faults.[9] Williams won the tournament and was
subsequently booed during the awards ceremony. The following month at the Ericsson
Open, Richard Williams, Serena and Venus's father, claimed racial slurs were
directed at him while in the stands.[10] Neither Venus nor Serena played the
tournament until 2015, when Serena Williams played in the tournament, ending her
14-year boycott of the event.[11][12] Venus Williams ended her boycott by competing
in 2016.[13]