Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina qualified for the semi-finals of the Indian Wells tournament by defeating Sorana Cirstea and Karolina Muchova respectively.
The winners of the last four Grand Slam tournaments are in the last four in Indian Wells! Elena Rybakina and Iga Swiatek have indeed joined Aryna Sabalenka, who had qualified the day before, in the semi-finals of the Californian tournament (Maria Sakkari, the fourth semi-finalist, has still not won a major tournament) . Defending champion and world No. 1, Iga Swiatek continued her California journey by easily beating world No. 83 and Caroline Garcia’s faller, Sorana Cirstea: 6-2, 6-3 in 1h22.
The Pole was certainly not imperial, notably conceding twice her service on two occasions in favor of the Romanian, but she provided the essentials. In the first set, after seeing his opponent come back from 0-2 down to 2-2, Swiatek sped up and won the last four games of the set. In the second, she quickly led 4-0, then Cirstea erased one of her late breaks (4-1), but the Pole was not worried and concluded at 5-3 on her second ball of game.
Revenge for Swiatek?
In the semi-finals, Iga Swiatek will have the opportunity to take her revenge on the one who eliminated her in the round of 16 of the last Australian Open, Elena Rybakina. The winner of the last Wimbledon, world No. 10, suffered but ended up beating No. 76, Karolina Muchova: 7-6, 2-6, 6-4 in 2:47. The Kazakh was down 4-2 then 5-3 in the first set and saved a set point at 5-4 on the Czech’s serve, before unbreaking (5-5) and in turn missing a set point. set at 6-5.
The two players were finally decided in the tie-break, won 7-4 by Rybakina by winning the last four points. But the world No. 10 failed to confirm in the second set, where she broke down losing her serve at 1-0 and 5-2. It was therefore necessary to play a third set, where Rybakina signed the only break, at 1-1, which allowed him to win a little later on his third match point.
