Indian Wells (United States) (AFP) – World number one Aryna Sabalenka kept her bid for a first Indian Wells title on track, holding off Canadian teen Victoria Mboko 7-6 (7/0), 6-4 to reach the semi-finals on Thursday. Sabalenka had beaten Mboko in the fourth round of the Australian Open in January in a match the 19-year-old called “an eye-opener.”
This time around, Mboko, ranked 10th in the world, went toe-to-toe with the big-hitting Belarusian in the opening set before Sabalenka ran away with it in the tiebreaker. Mboko regrouped admirably to open the second set with a confident service hold. But Sabalenka finally cracked Mboko’s serve on her seventh opportunity, conjuring the first break of the match for a 3-2 lead and fighting off a pair of break points in the eighth game to bring it home.
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“It was a tough battle today,” Sabalenka said. “Super happy with the performance. Happy the level I played on those key moments in each set.” Sabalenka, who came up empty in trips to the final of the ATP and WTA Masters 1000 in California in 2023 and 2025, next faces 14th-ranked Czech Linda Noskova, who ended the dream run of Australian qualifier Talia Gibson 6-2, 4-6, 6-2.
Sabalenka said she’d seen a “big improvement” in Mboko’s game since they met in Melbourne. “I think she was serving much better than she did in that match in Australia,” Sabalenka said. “Definitely a bit more confident and was playing more brave.” Mboko agreed but said there was room for more improvement. “It’s never easy to play the world number one,” she said. “I had a lot of chances in the first set …but she was playing really well, especially on pressure points. I’ve got to give credit to her there. I feel like I was maybe one or two points away from changing how the first set would have went …that’s something I could work on for the next time.”
Noskova looked headed for a comfortable victory over Gibson, whose fourth-round win over seventh-ranked Jasmine Paolini was her first over a top-10 foe. The 112th-ranked Australian surged back after breaking Noskova to open the second set. She held on to the advantage to force the third only for the Czech to seize control again.
World number two Iga Swiatek, a two-time Indian Wells champion, will take on ninth-seeded Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, with the winner of that match facing either reigning Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina or fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula in the semi-finals.
© 2024 AFP
