INDIAN WELLS – Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz toppled defending Indian Wells champion Cameron Norrie to reach his first ATP Masters semi-final and a dream matchup with Rafael Nadal as Greece’s Maria Sakkari overcame a first set deficit to beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 7-5 6-4 and book her place in the Indian Wells final four.
The Greek dynamo clawed her way out of a 4-1 first set hole with help from 20 unforced errors by her Kazakh opponent and seized the momentum for good in the second set when she erased four break points to take a 2-0 lead.
The sixth-seeded Sakkari sealed the win when Rybakina shanked a forehand on match point to reach her 20th career semi-final and third straight this year under sunny skies in the Southern California desert.
“I think I had a rough start,” said Sakkari, who was down an early break in the first set.
“I was a little bit nervous. But then I just had faith in my game. I knew that if I could break her back, I would get back into the match. Making a lot of balls after being 4-1 down gave me a good chance to come back into the match.
“I see that I’m actually very calm and very confident that it’s only a break. Okay, if someone serves lights out, it’s too good. I still have the first set, two more sets to go. That doesn’t really matter. I just accepted the fact I had a bad start, just tried to change things.
“I feel like I’ve improved on my serve, I’ve improved on my groundstrokes. I don’t have a huge hole in my game. There are a lot of things that I can improve, which is something good. Especially mentally, sometimes I have to just be a little bit stronger. But I’m working on that and I think I’ll get where I want to get.”
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 Garbine 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 semi-finals or better in her last three events. Coming into Indian Wells, she had reached the St. Petersburg final (falling to Anett Kontaveit) and the semi-finals at WTA 1000 Doha (losing to eventual champion Iga Swiatek).
The 18-year-old Alcaraz roared back in both sets to beat Norrie 6-4, 6-3 and become the second-youngest Indian Wells ATP semi-finalist ever, behind a 17-year-old Andre Agassi in 1988.
“I have no words to describe my feelings right now,” said Alcaraz, who fired 31 winners to come out on top in a tense duel that featured five breaks of serve in each set.
Alcaraz was down a break twice in the opening set, but won the last three games and pocketed the set on his third break point.
Down an early break in the second, he broke Britain’s Norrie three times before serving out the match with a love game to book the showdown with fellow Spaniard Nadal.
“It’s tough to play against Rafa, but at the same time I will enjoy the moment, I will enjoy the match. It’s not every day you play against your idol,” he said.
“I’ll be happy even if I lose that match but I’m focused right now to play my best against Rafa and be able to take my chances.”
