It’s a deja vu at Indian Wells, but not the one some might have expected. Last year’s finalists, Iga Swiatek and Maria Sakkari, lost their BNP Paribas Open semifinal matches to this year’s Australian Open finalists, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka.
Aryna Sabalenka powers past Maria Sakkari
Aryna Sabalenka defeated Maria Sakkari 6-2 6-3 in Friday’s semifinals. This was the Greek’s only two-set match in the whole tournament, and the Belarusian barely gave her a chance to get comfortable on the court. With powerful shots that the slow courts could hardly dull, the current WTA race leader pushed through the world No.7’s defenses.
The match was delayed more than a half hour due to technical issues with the audio system on court connected to automatic line calling. Before it was up and running again, the WTA worked to assemble a team of umpires who could serve as lines judges and even brought chairs to the court for them.
In her post match press conference, the second-seeded Sabalenka showed that she was a calmer player than had taken the court as recently as last year. Asked about how the delay affected her, the Australian Open title holder recalled, “For a second, I was thinking, oops, something is going wrong today. It’s not going to be the same. But then I remind…
