Taylor Fritz Explains Why Indian Wells Will Be Unpredictable This Year

Professional tennis players complaining about the quality of balls has become common over the past few years. However, American tennis star Taylor Fritz is sounding the alarm ahead of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.

Fritz spent his Friday night chatting with fans while playing video games on Twitch. When asked about tennis balls, Fritz shared candid insight into what to expect.

Indian Wells' New Tennis Balls

Taylor Fritz on Indian Wells changing the balls to Dunlop. pic.twitter.com/uE566pfa6r
— asud (@asud683385) February 27, 2026

"It's going to be very interesting because they are changing the ball this year at Indian Wells to the Dunlop ball. Now, the Dunlop ball is what we play with the most on tour. But I also think it plays slow, I would say. The Dunlop ball plays slow when it wears out, and they have been wearing out fastly. I think that the quality of the ball has dropped exponentially."

Fritz added, "The Dunlop ball always has good timing, like less unforced errors are made with the Dunlop balls, like Wilson US Open balls. With the Wilson balls, people make a lot of poor mistakes. That is kind of like what the old balls at Indian Wells was.

Now that they're using the Dunlop ball, I'm really interested to see how slow it feels. People are going to be missing less, they are going to be longer points. I just don't know how much the balls are going to wear out. It's going to be a very different Indian Wells, because this is going to be the first Indian Wells I've maybe ever played in that they're not using the Penn tour ball that they used forever."

Indian Wells Weather Conditions

Very genuine and thorough insight from Fritz on Indian Wells switching from Penn to Dunlop balls this year.

In short: he thinks Penn balls are more “missable” — even on slow hard courts they fly.

With Dunlop, it’s harder to hit through the court, so he expects longer rallies… https://t.co/tZATsuWClr pic.twitter.com/DRVWdi48xN
— Tennis Masterr (@tennismasterr) February 28, 2026

Fritz concluded by saying, "Personally, I will be requesting a day match, every single match, unless I play someone who is a bigger and slower person than me... Otherwise, I will play in the day, where I will be rewarded for my serve and my aggressive ground strokes."

Fritz is currently the ATP world No. 7 with a singles record of 9-6 with zero singles titles. Fritz won his first and only ATP Masters 1000 title against Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells in 2022.

The 2026 BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The outdoor hard-court tournament is a Masters 1000 event on the ATP and WTA tours. The iconic event runs from March 4-15, 2026.

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