Jannik Sinner to face recently defaulted Andrey Rublev in exciting draw at Indian Wells

As per tradition, several high-profile singles players have signed up for the Indian Wells Open doubles event with Jannik Sinner the biggest name in the draw.

Australian Open champion Sinner – who is 12-0 in singles this year and has risen to No 2 in the Live Rankings – will once again team up with fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego and they will look to replicate their 2023 Davis Cup success.

The pair defeated Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Miomir Kecmanovic in a winner-takes-all semi-final match to steer their country to the final before Italy defeated Australia to win their first Davis Cup title since 1976.

Sinnego – as fans have dubbed them – also played at Indian Wells last year, but lost in the first round and they will once again have a tough first-round match-up as they will take on Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov.

Singles stars Rublev and Khachanov are fairly regular competitors in the doubles at big events as they won the Madrid Open last year and also own three ATP Masters 1000 runners-up trophies.

But of bigger interest is the fact that the doubles clash will be Rublev’s first match on the ATP Tour following his default from his semi-final match at the Dubai Tennis Championships last week.

READ MORE: Jannik Sinner unofficially the new No 2 in the ATP Rankings – here is how he can stay ahead of Carlos Alcaraz

World No 5 Rublev was accused of screaming and swearing in Russian at a line judge during his match against Alexander Bublik and was disqualified.

Rublev – who has been fined $36,000, but allowed to keep his ranking points – protested his innocence, but also vowed to learn from the incident.

“While I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to finish my semifinal in Dubai, I am grateful for all the support I had from you the last two days, I received a lot of messages,” the 26-year-old said in a statement.

“Thank you to everyone supporting me, I promise I will learn from this and will try to be a better player and better person.”

Rublev and Sinner recently met in the singles quarter-final at the Australian Open with the latter winning in straight sets before going on to beat Djokovic in the semi-final and Daniil Medvedev in the final to win his first Grand Slam.

The winner of the Sinner-Sonego v Rublev-Khachanov match could face another interesting match-up in the second round as fellow singles specialists Ben Shelton and Chris Eubanks have also entered the doubles event. The American pair, though, has a difficult first-round match as they are up against fifth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacia Zeballos.

In another clash, Alexander Zverev and Marcelo Melo will take on Great Britain’s Dan Evans and Grigor Dimitrov.

Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden are the top seeds with Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek leading the bottom half of the draw as the second seeds.

READ MORE: Andrey Rublev demands change as ATP Tour deliver punishment for Dubai disqualification