Big singles names still alive in Indian Wells doubles

Indian Wells, commonly called the "Fifth Slam," is arguably the year’s biggest tournament outside of the four majors. In one area in particular, it stands alone: doubles.

Year after year, the best singles players in the world enter the BNP Paribas Open doubles draw, sometimes garnering more attention than singles matches that go on simultaneously throughout the grounds. That is certainly not something that happens year-round.

This week, 13 of the Top 20 singles players entered the men's doubles draw, including the Top 3: Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka. Even former world No. 4 Juan Martin del Potro wanted in on the action, teaming up with Leander Paes.

Murray and partner Daniel Evans gave up a break lead in the second set of their second round match against doubles savants Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer (who also eliminated world No. 7 Marin Cilic and Nikola Mektic).

Wawrinka partnered up with No. 13-ranked Grigor Dimitrov, but they fell in their opener to doubles specialists Max Mirnyi and Treat Huey.

Djokovic, however, is still going strong. The Serb and compatriot Viktor Troicki knocked off the top-seeded tandem of Nicolas Mahut and Pierre Hugues-Herbert in a three-set-thriller (Mahut and Hugues-Herbert happen to be US Open and Wimbledon champions).

And while the Serbians may not play much doubles…

...just look at how much the victory meant to them.

The second seeds in the draw were also eliminated early on when the surprising pair of world No. 16 Nick Kyrgios and 40-year-old doubles veteran Nenad Zimonjic stunned Bob and Mike Bryan in the first round.

Those two are still in the draw thanks to a walkover into the quarterfinals.

Arguably the most intriguing pairings in Indian Wells has been 14-time Slam winner Rafael Nadal and Australia's Bernard Tomic. That duo won a match before succumbing in a thriller to sixth seeds, Rajeev Ram and Raven Klaasen.

Nadal said that the pairing came about after he originally agreed to play with Tomic at the beginning of the year in Brisbane. But the Spaniard had to back out, so he offered up Indian Wells instead.

There's no doubt that doubles shines at Indian Wells—now it's just a matter of translating that interest to other tournaments in the year.