Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have yet to make their starts at Indian Wells 2017. However, each of them will be on Sunday's order of play as they open their campaigns after first-round byes. Both Federer and Nadal should advance on Sunday as neither has picked up a particularly dangerous player to start the tournament with.
Federer faces Robert
Federer will face Stephane Robert of France in a round-of-sixty-four match from the Masters Series 1000 event. Robert is a veteran on tour, however he has yet to establish himself as a player that's capable of stunning the top players with the exception of only some rare counterexamples.
At the age of 36, Robert is very unlikely to break his ways and an upset of Federer at this point in the Indian Wells draw seems unlikely. If Robert was to ground some hope in an upset, it would be from the fact that Federer lost to Evgeny Donskoy just over a week ago.
Nadal will face Pella
Nadal will face Guido Pella, two players that have never faced one another on tour. Pella enters the match with just a 2-6 record on the year in tour-level events, both of those wins coming last week in Sau Paulo on clay. He is not really a man for all surfaces at this stage in his career. He has never made the final of any hard-court event and his results in late 2016 on the cement were dismal. Nadal is certainly a better clay-courter than a hard-courter as well, however his results on the latter surface are still incredibly strong.
For match times, Nadal and Pella are second up on Stadium 1. The start time for the stadium is scheduled for 11am with Daniel Evans to face Kei Nishikori with Nadal and Pella to follow. Federer and Robert are second-last up in the stadium, their match guaranteed to not start before 7pm PT on Sunday night.
It would be a massive upset for either Nadal or Federer to go out of the draw this early.
However, Federer did not look great last week when he played in Dubai so tennis fans will have to see if Robert is able to put something competitive together. Other key players that will see action on Sunday include Grigor Dimitrov, Jack Sock, Marin Cilic, and Alexander Zverev in what will be a loaded day of three-set tennis from California.
