The maddingly inconsistent Lorenzo Sonego is one of those guys you would still pay to watch. He lit up Melbourne Park this year, playing with carefree abandon en route to a maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance.
2025 ATP Tour
Masters 1000
Indian Wells Open
Indian Wells Tennis Centre, California (Outdoor Hardcourt)
Selected Round of 128 Matches- 5th March
Lorenzo Sonego 0.73 vs David Goffin 1.07
The maddingly inconsistent Lorenzo Sonego is one of those guys you would still pay to watch. He lit up Melbourne Park this year, playing with carefree abandon en route to a maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance. The reigning Winston Salem Open champ certainly has the game to deliver on hard surfaces. It’s just a matter of consistency. He has a solid serve and a dynamic forehand, but occasionally goes for too much and can become an unforced errors machine. He reached the quarterfinals in Marseille but is fresh off a comfortable first-round defeat to Tsitsipas in Dubai. I think that Sonego- in peak form- should thrive in the notoriously slow Indian Wells conditions (even if it isn’t reflected in his past performances). Sonego has reached the semifinals of the Masters 1000 event in Rome and has twice reached the 4th round of Roland Garros. The 2021 Sardegna Open champ has the tools to thrive in slower conditions.
Former World No.7 David Goffin is a fascinating curveball this week. Theoretically, he should be easy to dismiss. The Belgian started the year in terrible fashion, losing his first five matches of the season. But he started to look a bit more like his old self in Acapulco, beating Hijikata and Ben Shelton in straight sets en route to a quarterfinal finish. Goffin enjoyed a very good end to his 2024 campaign, reaching the semifinals at the Winston Salem Open prior to a brilliant quarterfinal run at the Shanghai Masters (where he somehow got the better of World No.3 Alex Zverev). So, it’s hard to gauge which version of Goffin we will get here. He also has a bit of pedigree in this event, reaching the semifinals all the way back in 2016. I can’t see him reaching the final four this year, but he could look to spring a surprise or two.
The Verdict: Sonego to win in three at 3.1- These two share the head-to-head spoils at one win apiece, with Sonego emerging triumphant when they met in last year’s Winston Salem semifinals. This could be quite a tight match, with Goffin banking on all his experience to draw errors from the erratic Sonego. However, I think that Sonego’s firepower should help him edge it in the end.
