If you were to look at the seeds into the men’s and women’s final of the BNP Paribas Open you might have to stop yourself to make sure you were looking at the right brackets. While the men of the ATP tour have been dominated by the Big Three for the past five years, the women of the WTA have been ruled by parity and relative chaos, with women of all ranks and sizes coming out on top.

Which makes Sunday’s slate of finals particularly unique. The women take center stage first, and for the first time since 2008, a WTA final will be contested by the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked players in the world, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova. If the players sound familiar, they should. The two clashed at the Australian Open final two months ago, where Azarenka laid a beat-down on Sharapova and snatched the No. 1 ranking, all in one day. Azarenka was unstoppable on that day (and she’s been unstoppable since), using her movement and percussive hitting to dismantle the Russian, winning 6-3, 6-0. On match point, a shocked Azarenka fell to her knees, turned to her box and asked “What happened?” Sharapova must have been thinking the exact same thing.

It’s rare to see a great champion like Sharapova, who’s well-known for her fighting spirit, to suffer such a bad loss, but Azarenka seems to have her number. The former number one hasn’t beaten Azarenka on hard courts since 2009, and their matches since then haven’t been close (Sharapova’s failed to take more than five games in each of their three matches). Azarenka is the best returner in the game right now and her ability to attack Sharapova’s weak second serve and absorb her power, sending the ball back with interest neutralizes Sharapova’s ability to do what she does best: take immediate control over the rallies and dictate.

To win on Sunday, Sharapova needs to keep her first service percentage up so as to not give Azarenka a lot of looks at her second serve, and if she does find herself missing she’ll need to go for a little more on the second serve. Once they’re in the rally, look for Sharapova to attack Azarenka’s forehand to try and break it down and get some short balls she can pounce on.

As for Azarenka, she just needs to keep doing what she’s been doing during her 22-0 start to the year. Despite a bit of a wobble against Mona Barthel in the first round, Azarenka’s looked unbeatable. Her game is air-tight these days and while she may not wow the crowds with her power or defense, it’s hard to see any weaknesses when she’s playing well. This will be a tough test for Sharapova, who will definitely have revenge on her mind.

After the women duke it out, Roger Federer will look to get some revenge on surprise finalist John Isner, who beat him in stunning fashion in Switzerland to lead the U.S. Davis Cup team to victory in February. Isner, who defeated top seed Novak Djokovic 7-6 (7), 3-6, 7-6 (5), in Saturday’s semifinal, will crack the Top 10 for the first time on Monday and can surpass Mardy Fish to become the top American if he can beat Federer for the second time in a little over a month. While Isner is playing in his first Masters series final, Federer is looking to match Rafael Nadal’s record 19 Masters shields. It’s a tough ask for Big John, but as he’s proven over the last year, he has the game that bothers the best.

Isner announced his Top 10 potential last year at the French Open, when he pushed Rafael Nadal to five sets on Nadal’s best surface. Even though he lost, it was a surprising performance for Isner, who had long been considered a fairly one-dimensional player. Sure, he had a big serve and a powerful forehand, but could he improve the rest of his game to link it all up? As it turns out, along with coach Craig Boynton, Isner’s worked hard at not not neutralizing his weaknesses, but turning them into weapons. HIs return game has improved dramatically over the years, as has his backhand and volleys. If you needed any proof as to his improved return game, look no further than the third set tiebreak against Djokovic on Saturday. With Djokovic serving at 2-3, Isner danced around his backhand and hit and inside-in forehand down the line for a return winner. That was the mini-break he needed and Isner went on to hold his serve for the rest of the tiebreak to go on and win. A year ago, Isner wouldn’t have the guts or confidence to go for that shot at such a pressure moment. Times have changed.

“I knew going into this year that I had the tools and I had the game to be able to at least compete with these guys,” Isner said. “I take the court no matter who I’m playing expecting to win and believing to win.”

As for Federer, as much as things change they do stay the same. Federer hasn’t won a Grand Slam in two years, a surprisingly long stretch for a player from whom we unfairly expect greatness on a weekly basis. But Federer is arguably the best player on Tour right now. Since his crushing loss to Djokovic in the U.S. Open semifinals, Federer has won five titles, won 38 of his last 40 matches (his only two losses to Nadal at the Australian Open and Isner at Davis Cup), and is on a 14-match win streak. Federer had no idea what to expect from himself here at Indian Wells, as he’s been under the weather all week due to what he calls “the flying around the world virus”. But after some patchy matches early, Federer is flying. He dismissed 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro in the quarterfinals and then played “more than unbelievable” as Nadal described it, beating Nadal in cold, windy, tricky conditions 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinal. That win avenged one of his two losses on the year. On Sunday he’ll have a chance on to avenge the other one.

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Courtney Nguyen is a tennis blogger and contributing writer for SI.com’s tennis blog, Beyond the Baseline [link: http://tennis.si.com/] and a weekly guest on the No Challenges Remaining [link: http://nochallengesremaining.tumblr.com/] tennis podcast. Follow her on Twitter @fortydeucetwits.