Hmm a little over here? I do think so!

Birell is having the best start to a season of her career. Currently ranked 69th in the world, she’s brimming with confidence with two WTA semifinals (Adelaide and Austin). In Adelaide, she beat players like Potapova and Cristian, showing that she’s made a mental breakthrough. Her serve stats are excellent with 67.5% of points won behind her first serve, which allows her to dominate rallies early. Pretty impressive on fast hard courts against different kinds of game styles! But what about on slow surfaces? She’s never gone past R1 here in the desert.

The Russian lefty is the big ‘outsider’ revelation of the start of the year. She made a huge statement at the Australian Open by knocking out Badosa. Her stats show incredible resilience: even though she generally wins fewer points than her opponents (Dominance Ratio < 1), she is surgical on pressure points. Her effectiveness on return on break points (Breakpoints Prevail at 1.27) makes her an extremely dangerous player in rallies. Her new top-100 status allowed her to skip qualies this year, and her all-around profile fits well with the new 2026 Indian Wells surface, as she’s a natural clay-courter to begin with.

We can see now after a few matches that power is nothing on this surface without control! Flat hitting could struggle at first for the Australian against a clay-courter who will quickly find her bearings, and she said she’s been working a lot on her backhand this year. Statistically, Birell tends to start her matches more like a slow starter than the opposite, and the weather will be hot with no wind, ideal for the Russian’s topspin. Birell has lost 75% of her matches against left-handers in her career, and the only one she won was against… Oksana on fast hard court, with 32 games in the match! Oksana didn’t have as many skills back then! Revenge incoming?