Kevin Anderson knows that no matter how many years you have played tennis, you never stop learning. After 10 years as a professional and close to 500 matches, the hard-working South African remains a student of the game.

Three weeks on from working his way back into the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings, the 31-year-old is set to compete at the BNP Paribas Open, where he reached the quarter-finals in 2013 and 2014.

“I need to trust my game and trust the process,” said Anderson. “It’s something I’m still working on. I’m trying to allow myself to be more free on the court and really trust my abilities. It’s something you have to do.

“When you first come on Tour, and play guys you’ve seen on TV, you almost feel like your game is not as good as a [Rafael] Nadal or a [Roger] Federer. But I’m now at a stage where I can play my best tennis, when it matters the most. It comes from experience, but I’m still learning and improving.”

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At Indian Wells this week, 6’8” Anderson will be found on a practice court training for hours on end. Fine turning his game, centred on a serve that has fired down 5,837 aces since he turned professional in 2007.

“Bigger guys do seem to have a pretty big advantage on serve, because of the ability to find better angles, where you can hit and the pace you can generate,” said Anderson. “Now some of the bigger guys are matching the physicality.

“The challenges I face come down to movement and balance. It can be used in an advantageous way, covering the court with fewer strides. I learned to play tennis from the baseline, so my movement is better there, but I do also work very hard in coming forward.”

Having spent one week in the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings (at No. 10) on 12 October 2015, injuries and time off the ATP World Tour saw him drop to as low as No. 80 on 16 January 2017. But now back in the Top 10, Anderson is competing with confidence once more.

On U.S. soil, his home for the past decade, he has reached nine of his 16 tour-level finals. Over the course of the next 11 days, he will attempt to break his 0-8 record in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-finals. First up though, seventh seed Anderson will play a Russian, Karen Khachanov or Evgeny Donskoy, in Indian Wells.

Juan Martin del Potro is playing in his eighth BNP Paribas Open. But to Del Potro, some things are always the same in Indian Wells. For instance, his draw.

Every year, Del Potro said on Wednesday, he has the toughest draw. He doesn’t even need to look at the other sections of the field. He just finds his name, and he knows – yep, that’s the hardest part of the whole tournament.

“Always. It doesn’t change. That’s the draw, what I expect for sure,” Del Potro said during his pre-tournament press conference.

That was, without a doubt, the case last year in Indian Wells, when the Argentine, then the 31^st seed, was drawn in the same quarter as second seed and five-time champion Novak Djokovic, fifth seed Rafael Nadal, ninth seed Roger Federer and up-and-coming players Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Zverev.

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The quarter was aptly named “The Group of Death”. Del Potro fell to Djokovic in the third round, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

This year in Indian Wells, however, looks a little more pleasant for Del Potro, who’s improved his seeding and therefore his draw.

He is the sixth seed in the desert, and the earliest he can face another seed is in the third round, if No. 29 David Ferrer of Spain meets him there. It would be their third FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting of the year. Del Potro won both encounters but their FedEx ATP Head2Head series is tied at 6-6.

In the second round, Del Potro will face either German Jan-Lennard Struff or #NextGenATP Aussie Alex de Minaur.

“I’m very positive with my level of tennis at the moment, and I want to stay focused just on my first match and then see if I can go far in this tournament,” Del Potro said. “But I think that the most important thing is to try to stay calm and go step-by-step.”

Delpo at the BNP Paribas Open

The 29-year-old is back into the Top 10 at No. 8, his highest ATP Ranking since 3 August 2014. Just four days ago, Del Potro also celebrated winning the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC in Acapulco, his biggest title since the 2013 Swiss Indoors Basel, which is also an ATP World Tour 500-level tournament.

In Acapulco, Del Potro beat three Top 10 players – Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Kevin Anderson – en route to his 21^st tour-level title.

“I’ve got much confidence. Looking forward to playing good tennis in this tournament. I beat top opponents during the Acapulco tournament, which means something good to myself and I’m very excited to keep playing at the same level as I did last week,” he said.

Del Potro has never won the BNP Paribas Open or an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown. He reached the final in Indian Wells in 2013 (l. to Nadal).

“If you want to win a title like this, you must play good tennis and beat many other good players, too, and that’s my biggest goal,” Del Potro said. “So I need to go step-by-step, match-by-match and see how far can I go.”

Running on empty after a breakout 2017 and with an off-season stacked with charity events and weddings, Jack Sock has hit his reset button a little later than most. The first indication of the American’s big 2017 came at last year’s BNP Paribas Open where he reached the semi-finals.

Back to defend those points with a Top 10 ranking to boot, the 25-year-old is rebuilding after some delayed time-out. He fell in his opening two matches of the season – in Auckland and at the Australian Open – before deciding to take that much-needed break.

“That reset was the month after Australia I took,” Sock said. “Obviously, the last two weeks, results wise, it hasn’t really shown, the work I put in.

“I flew home from Melbourne, I think even that day I was in the gym. I was in the gym for three and a half to four weeks straight, taking that time off, choosing not to play Davis Cup in Serbia to get my mind right again and my body in shape.”

The upside to Sock’s maiden ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title at the Rolex Paris Masters late last season was a last-minute qualification for the Nitto ATP Finals in London.

He would reach the semi-finals there on debut to end the season with a Top 10 ATP Ranking. The downside was a shorter than expected off-season, juggling off-court commitments with a race to be fresh again for his return Down Under.

“I had no expectations being in London so I had to re-do my off-season schedule. I’d already committed to things not thinking I was going to be in London,” Sock said. “I fly home and I’m travelling a lot in my off-season. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have probably scheduled that many things if I’d known I was going to be in London.

“So that’s why I took time after Australia to regroup, be home, being in my own bed for more than two days. I feel a lot more confident now, a lot happier, I’m out there playing instead of being stressed out.”

Sock won four straight three-setters before eventual champion Roger Federer brought his run to an end in the semi-finals of last year’s BNP Paribas Open. Sock saved four match points to upset Grigor Dimitrov in the third round and also stunned fifth seed Kei Nishikori in the quarter-finals en route.

Hopes of him becoming the next great American have only heightened. It’s an expectation he is all too aware of, having assumed the mantle as American No. 1.

“I think the [American] fans are used to having someone winning a slam, at least competing to win a slam, winning multiple tournaments outside of that,” he said. “There were multiple guys in the past to get behind. Obviously there hasn’t been that level yet. We’re all doing our best. It’s a tough sport.

“There’s a guy named Federer, another named [Rafael] Nadal and [Novak] Djokovic winning a lot of tournaments in the last 15 years so it’s not the easiest just to weasel your way in there and win.

“But I think the sport is changing a little bit … I think there’s a new wave coming in.”