Elena Rybakina fired seven aces in routing top-ranked Iga Swiatek 6-2, 6-2 on Friday to advance to the BNP Paribas Open final. (More Tennis News)
Rybakina will play second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, who b🍸eat Maria Sakkari 6-2, 6-3, in Sunday’s final in the Southern California desert.
“It’s going to be huge,” said Sabalenka, who won the doubles title in 2019. “This tournament feels like a Grand Slam. I really want to hol🃏d this trophy as a singles champion.”
Rybakina needed just 76 minut🌄es to finish off Swiatek, the defending champion. She won 82% of her first-serve points, while Swiatek only managed 42%. Rybakina also beat the Polish star at the Australian Open in January on her way to finishing runner-up.
“I didn’t expect that 𝓰I was going to play that good today,” Rybakina said. “I had nothing to lose, I just wanted to co꧂me and enjoy. I played one of the best matches this year.”
Swiatek had won 10 straight matches in the desert until being stopped by Rybakina’s powerful groundstrokes that repeatedly rushed Swiatek 🦩and forced her into uncharacteristic errors.
Swiatek double-faulted to lose the first set. Then she fell ꧃behind 5-0 in the second before rallying to win two games.
Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion, impro💃ved to 17-1 this year.
She leads Rybakina 4-0 in their career meetings, but all four have go🅠ne to a deciding set, including in the final Do🍃wn Under.
🍎“It was a really close match in Australia,” Rybakina✱ said on court. “If I’m going to play like I did today, I think I have all the chances.”
Sabalenka took control against Sakkari, seeded seventh, from the start. She attacked the Greek’s second serve, winning 20 of 26 points off it. Sakkari, runner-up in last year’s final, fell to 3-5 in her career agains💫t Sabalenka.
Sakkari reached the semi🐼finals by rallying from a set down three times and going 4-0 in deciding sets.
But Sabalenka was too dominant. She won the final three games, including two service breaks, to ไtake the first set, 6-2.
Sabalenka led 2-0 in the second before Sakkari tied it 2-all. F꧑rom there, Sabalenka won f💝our of the final five games to close out the match in 1 1/2 hours.
“Just super happy right now,” Sabalenka said on court. “🎶Maria’s such a great player and I knew it was going to be tough.”
