Diamonds in the desert: Seven shining moments in Indian Wells

At one of the biggest tournaments on the calendar, WTA players often bring their best tennis to the BNP Paribas Open.

However, some breakthrough runs in the California desert over the past decade have been the first of many - marking a sign of things to come for both young players and veterans alike. 

Take a look back on some of the best breakthrough moments at Indian Wells over the past 10 years. 

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova - 2009 (Semifinals)

One of the world's best juniors in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova announced herself as a WTA threat in the first year that Indian Wells was classified as a Premier Mandatory event.

The then-17-year-old Russian had a stunning run through to the final four in her tournament debut, and knocked off two Top 10 players in the process.

She didn't lose a set in her first five matches, which included wins over then-World No.2 Jelena Jankovic and No.7 seed Agnieszka Radwanska, before losing to eventual runner-up Ana Ivanovic. 

Pavlyuchenkova first made her Top 30 debut after the tournament, and she has been a force on the tour in the decade since.

The former World No.13 has racked up 12 career titles and six quarterfinal berths at Grand Slams to date, including just this year at the Australian Open.

Peng Shuai - 2011 (Quarterfinals)

Long a stalwart inside the Top 100, Peng Shuai's run to the quarterfinals of the 2011 tournament was a harbinger of a best-ever season in singles for the Chinese star.

Having ended the previous seven seasons inside the Top 100, but never peaking higher than World No.31, Peng's two-fisted groundstrokes made their mark in her seventh trip to the desert in 2011. 

En route to her second career Premier Mandatory quarterfinal, two years after her first at the China Open, three of Peng's four victories to reach the last eight were dramatic three-setters.

This included her first career win over compatriot Li Na, in which she rallied from a set down for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over the No.7 seed, and a 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 win over No.18 seed Nadia Petrova. 

After a tight three-set loss to Maria Sharapova, Peng's showing in Indian Wells was a springboard for the rest of the season. She ultimately reached the second week at three of the four Grand Slams, and peaked at a career-high ranking of World No.14 that August. 

Flavia Pennetta - 2014 (Champion)

After undergoing wrist surgery in the summer of 2012, Flavia Pennetta's last three seasons on the WTA earned her some of her best results - all after the age of 30. 

The second of these - following a US Open semifinal showing in 2013 when she was on the comeback trail and ranked World No.83 - came in the spring of 2014. Arriving in Indian Wells as the No.20 seed, Pennetta walked away with what was, at the time, her biggest career title, thanks in part to a dominant showing in her last two rounds.

This included a 7-6(5), 6-3 semifinal victory over No.1 seed Li - avenging an Australian Open quarterfinal defeat from that January against the eventual champion - and a 6-2, 6-1 win over Radwanska in the championship. At age 32, the veteran Italian became the tournament's oldest champion since Steffi Graf won the 1996 event.

Just 18 months later, she lifted her first Grand Slam singles trophy at the US Open before retiring at the end of that season.

Lesia Tsurenko - 2015 (Quarterfinals)

After nearly falling out of the world's top 200 prior to the previous year's Wimbledon, Lesia Tsurenko's mid-career revival ultimately took the Ukrainian beyond where she had ever been before.

A qualifier at the 2015 BNP Paribas Open, Tsurenko defeated Annika Beck, Andrea Petkovic, Alizé Cornet and Eugenie Bouchard in succession to reach her first-ever quarterfinal at Premier level or higher.

Ultimately, her Cinderella run ended prematurely, as she was forced to retire against eventual runner-up Jankovic in the quarterfinals due to an ankle injury that she suffered in a dramatic victory over reigning Wimbledon finalist Bouchard.

Tsurenko's Top 10 wins in California over Petkovic and Bouchard were two of the five she totaled in 2015, which also included wins over Garbiñe Muguruza at the Rogers Cup, Karolina Pliskova at the Connecticut Open and Lucie Safarova at the US Open.

She also won her first career title in Istanbul that summer, the first of four straight years in which she won a WTA title, and became a mainstay inside the Top 100 for the better part of the next five years before peaking at World No.23 last year.

Daria Kasatkina - 2016 (Quarterfinals)

In her first-ever appearance in a Premier Mandatory event, Daria Kasatkina's run to the quarterfinals of the 2016 BNP Paribas Open was the first of a pair of strong runs for the Russian at the event. 

Aged 19, Kasatkina beat two-time Indian Wells champion Daniela Hantuchova in the first round, and later picked up steam by beating eventual Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig in a dramatic, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2), third-round clash ahead of a meeting with No.12 seed and French Open semifinalist Timea Bacsinszky. Kasatkina surrendered just six games to the Swiss to reach the last eight, eventually losing to Pliskova. 

Two years later, Kasatkina reached her biggest career final at the event, losing to the last of our breakthrough performers on this list, in the midst of a career year that took her to the Top 10 in the WTA rankings.

Elena Vesnina - 2017 (Champion)

After falling out of the Top 100 in October 2014, Russian Elena Vesnina's dramatic turn in fortunes started with a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon in 2016, and ended with her biggest career title in the California desert the next spring.

Seeded No.14, Vesnina first statement victory of the fortnight came in the round of 16 against reigning US Open champion Angelique Kerber, who was guaranteed to return to World No.1 following the tournament.

What followed was a three-set victory over Australian Open runner-up Venus Williams, another three-set win against in-form Kristina Mladenovic, and ultimately, a titanic, three-hour victory over compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova to seal the title. The win also vaulted the Russian to a career-high ranking of World No.13.

Naomi Osaka - 2018 (Champion) 

Ascending to global superstardom by winning the US Open at the end of 2018, Naomi Osaka checked off a lot of 'firsts' six months earlier in Indian Wells.

Ranked just outside the Top 40 and having never before won a professional singles title at either WTA or ITF level, Osaka was dominant across seven rounds to claim her first-ever championship. 

Losing just one set across her matches, Osaka's list of victories were a who's who of tennis' most recent champions, including Maria Sharapova, Radwanska, Pliskova and Simona Halep - the last of which was her first-ever win over a reigning World No.1. 

She and Kasatkina contested the first Indian Wells final between two players aged 21 or younger since 2001, and Osaka's 6-3, 6-2 victory assured her of becoming the youngest winner at the event since Ana Ivanovic in 2008.

She was also the youngest player to win any of the four Premier Mandatory events since Caroline Wozniacki triumphed at the 2010 China Open.

Osaka became the third unseeded player to win the tournament after Serena Williams (1999) and Kim Clijsters (2005), and the first Japanese player to win a Premier Mandatory singles title.

And her success in California certainly started a trend: just one year later, Canada's Bianca Andreescu pulled off a similarly-stunning Indian Wells and US Open double in the same year.