American Tommy Paul will lock horns with fourth-seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the Indian Wells Masters semi-finals on Saturday. 

The winner of this semi-final will face either third-seed Jannik Sinner of Italy or defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain in Sunday's final. 

The Russian leads 2-0 in his series with Tommy Paul. He last won at the China Open last year when Medvedev claimed a comfortable 6-2, 6-1 first round victory over the American. 

Remarkably, there has been precisely one American male semifinalist in each of the last three editions of the Indian Wells Masters. However, two of them fell short of reaching the championship match, while the third, Taylor Fritz, achieved the greatest success of his career in 2022. He went on to win the title after a victory against another Russian Andrey Rublev in the semifinals.

The 26-year-old American had a breakout season in 2023. This year, Paul has proudly embraced the responsibility of carrying the American flag deep into the competition, capitalizing on a favorable draw (including Novak Djokovic's shock loss to Italian Luca Nardi) and producing a solid fighting effort against 9^th-seed Casper Ruud of Norway in the quarterfinals - his first win over a Top 10 player in 2024.  

His 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win over the three-time Grand Slam finalist and ex World No. 2 ago marked the first time in this campaign that Paul conceded a set. He claimed impressive wins over American teenager Alex Michelsen, an in-form Ugo Humbert of France and Lucas Nardi of Italy, who as mentioned above stunned Novak Djokovic in the third round. 

Moreover, Paul is also enjoying a strong run on home soil this season, having reached the final in both tournaments he entered in the United States last month. He secured a 7-6, 5-7,  6-3 victory over fellow American Marcos Giron to claim the title at the Dallas Open, dropping his first set in the final, and then faced defeat at the hands of Taylor Fritz in the championship match at the Delray Beach Open one week later. 

Tommy Paul's only previous semifinal appearance at the Masters 1000 level came during the last North American hard-court swing (last August), where he was defeated 6-4, 6-4 by the eventual champion and then-world No. 8, Jannik Sinner in Toronto. A campaign he'll never forget as Paul also defeated then-World No. 1 and top seed Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals. 

The experienced Russian needed some time to physically and mentally recover from the exhausting Australian Open campaign in January, when Medvedev suffered yet another heartbreaking Grand Slam final defeat.

Daniil Medvedev claimed a 7-5, 6-4 win over Holger Rune of Denmark to reach the semi-finals of the Indian Wells Masters for a second year in a row.

The 28-year-old is enjoying another strong campaign in the desert. So far so good, Medvedev is just one win away from reaching back-to-back finals at Indian Wells, even though he said that's not his favorite hard-court competition. 

Medvedev already beat another in-form player in Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 16, but his upcoming semi-final against Paul is more expected to resemble the challenges of his match against Sebastian Korda earlier in the competition. 

The Russian might not be performing at his optimum level right now, and there are certain indications that his mental focus might not be entirely sharp. However, given his experience at this level and his notable success on North American hard courts in particular, Medvedev remains a favorite to complete the task at hand but Paul should not be written off so easily.