Keys, Sabalenka set for rematch at Indian Wells; Alcaraz wins

Madison Keys extended her winning streak to 16 matches, reaching the BNP Paribas Open semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 wipeout of wild-card entry Belinda Bencic on Thursday.

Keys, the Australian Open champion and No. 5 seed at Indian Wells, needed just 65 minutes to set up a meeting with top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, who defeated Liudmila Samsonova 6-2, 6-3 later Thursday. Keys beat Sabalenka in three sets in January at Melbourne Park, denying Sabalenka a third consecutive title.

Bencic was coming off an upset of No. 4 seed Coco Gauff in the fourth round, but the 28-year-old from Switzerland never had a chance against the fifth-seeded Keys.

“I’m really excited,” Sabalenka said of the opportunity to play Keys again. “I really hope I can do a little bit better than I did in Australia.”

Editor’s Picks

On the men’s side, two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz closed out the day’s action by overcoming a 4-1 second-set deficit to defeat Francisco Cerundolo 6-3, 7-6 (4), and Daniil Medvedev reached the Indian Wells semifinals for the third consecutive year, earning a tight 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7) victory over 20-year-old Frenchman Arthur Fils.

Iga Swiatek reached the semifinals at Indian Wells for the fourth consecutive time in her bid to be the first woman to win the tournament three times. The No. 2 seed from Poland beat eighth-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China 6-3, 6-3 in a rematch of a Paris Olympics semifinal from last summer won by Zheng.

Swiatek, the defending champion, has a 10-match winning streak in the California desert. The five-time Grand Slam champion also won the event in 2022. Zheng ended Swiatek’s 25-match winning streak at the Olympics last year.

Swiatek converted all five of her break points, but Zheng broke twice on her way to winning six games, matching the total Swiatek had dropped in the tournament coming into the match.

“At the end it got really windy, which made it super tricky, especially when the conditions change during the match you need to adjust quickly and it’s not that easy,” Swiatek said. “It was a weird match with all the breaks and everything, but I wanted to be composed and really focused, and I’m glad that I did that.”

Up next for Swiatek will be 17-year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva, after the No. 9 seed’s 7-5, 6-3 win over Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.

Andreeva, who has won 10 straight matches, beat Swiatek convincingly en route to the title in Dubai last month. She is the youngest woman to reach the semifinals at Indian Wells since Maria Sharapova in 2005.

Alcaraz, who won his 16th consecutive match in the desert, will next play Jack Draper after the Briton dispatched American Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-5 in a battle of lefties. Shelton, 22, was the youngest American man to reach the quarterfinals at Indian Wells since 2004.

No. 5 seed Medvedev needed 2 hours, 25 minutes to keep alive a bid for a third trip to the final of the event. That included a brief delay in the third set when gusty winds blew debris all over the stadium.

Next up for Medvedev is Holger Rune, who moved on to his first Indian Wells semifinal by rallying for a 5-7, 6-0, 6-3 win over Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.