No.6 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece kept up her consistent excellence at top-tier events at the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday, moving into a WTA 1000 semifinal for the fifth time in her career with a 7-5, 6-4 win over No.17 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.
Sakkari now awaits the winner of the last of the four quarterfinals, which will be contested between No.21 seed Veronika Kudermetova and the defending champion, No.5 seed Paula Badosa, later on Thursday.
By the numbers: World No.6 Sakkari picked up her second Top 20 win of the season with her 1-hour and 38-minute victory over Rybakina, leveling their head-to-head at one win apiece. Rybakina had beaten Sakkari in the 2020 St. Petersburg semifinals.
Sakkari is recently unstoppable in quarterfinal matches. She has won her last nine quarterfinals in a row at tour-level, dating back to a loss to Garbiñe Muguruza in Doha over a year ago. She is 19-8 in Hologic WTA Tour quarterfinals throughout her career.
The Greek has now made the semifinals or better in her last three events. Coming into Indian Wells, she had reached the St. Petersburg final (falling to Anett Kontaveit) and the semifinals at WTA 1000 Doha (losing to eventual champion Iga Swiatek).
Sakkari will now try to turn around her record in WTA 1000 semifinals, where she is 0-4. A trip to her first WTA 1000 final could propel her to a new career-high ranking, which might potentially go as high as World No.2 depending on the remainder of the results this week.
Turning points: The Rybakina power game was the initial leader in the clash, as the 22-year-old Kazakh used a powerful forehand to break for 2-0, then slammed an ace on game point to consolidate for an early 3-0 lead. Coming into the quarterfinals, Rybakina had won 29 of her 30 service games during the tournament.
But down 4-1, Sakkari quickly got a handle on the returns and put a stop to Rybakina’s service dominance. Sakkari got back on serve at 4-3, assisted by a Rybakina double fault on break point, then used an outstanding deep return to break again for a 6-5 lead. Sakkari then served out the set with ease, having won six of the last seven games of the opener.
Rybakina had a chance to take an early lead in the second set as well, holding four break points for another 2-0 lead. But aggressive hitting by Sakkari helped the 26-year-old Greek grit out a hold, and she was rewarded for her perseverance by earning the only break of the set in the very next game.
Serving for the match at 5-4, Sakkari needed three match points before wrapping up the encounter with an error-forcing backhand and collecting another quality result at WTA 1000-level.
More to come....
"seal" - Google News
March 18, 2022 at 03:20AM
https://ift.tt/14lYnCD
Sakkari takes down Rybakina to seal Indian Wells semifinal spot - WTA Tennis
"seal" - Google News
https://ift.tt/Jvxa637
https://ift.tt/bMvF8RY
No comments:
Post a Comment