{"id":534098,"date":"2026-03-13T17:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534098\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:08:09","slug":"indian-wells-quarterfinal-recap-elena-rybakina-takes-world-no-2-spot-from-iga-swiatek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534098\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Wells quarterfinal recap: Elena Rybakina takes world No. 2 spot from Iga \u015awi\u0105tek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Follow The Athletic\u2019s coverage of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells<\/a><\/p>\n

The quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open<\/a> at Indian Wells are in the books, and it\u2019s time for the last fours to slug it out in California\u2019s Coachella Valley.<\/p>\n

Here are the matches and players that have stood out, some things tennis fans may have missed, and what to look out for as the tournament heads into its concluding weekend.<\/p>\n

A change at the top of the WTA Tour rankings<\/p>\n

Elena Rybakina\u2019s prize for beating Jessica Pegula 6-1, 7-6(4) on Thursday was twofold: She earned a spot in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open for the first time since she won the title here in 2023 and also secured a career-high ranking.<\/p>\n

Rybakina, the reigning Australian Open champion, will move up a spot and, for the first time, rise to world No. 2 come Monday.<\/p>\n

She takes over that position from Iga \u015awi\u0105tek, after Elina Svitolina beat her, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, in a quarterfinal that so frustrated the 24-year-old Pole that she was exchanging shouts with her team as the defeat unfolded.<\/p>\n

Svitolina-\u015awi\u0105tek pitted hot streak against hot streak. \u015awi\u0105tek entered the match with a 23-2 record in the California desert since 2022 and had been rolling in this tournament, dictating matches with ease. But no player has won more in these early weeks of 2026 than Svitolina, who took advantage of the court\u2019s faster pace due to Thursday\u2019s 95F (35C) heat and improved to 19-3 on the season. Both players found controlling the ball difficult. Svitolina just did it better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only against (\u015awi\u0105tek), but I think just generally trying to be more aggressive, trying to go for my shots,\u201d the No. 9 seed, who takes on Rybakina next, said in her news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no champion who is waiting for the mistakes, and you have to really try to set yourself up in a good position to attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rybakina was in attack mode all match against Pegula, winning 75 percent of points on her first serve. With Aryna Sabalenka facing No. 14 seed Linda Noskov\u00e1 in Friday\u2019s other semifinal, a rematch of January\u2019s Australian Open final is still in play.<\/p>\n

First though, Rybakina has to get past Svitolina.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ava Wallace<\/p>\n

Victoria Mboko got closer, but how did Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s experience tell?<\/p>\n

Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> won their BNP Paribas Open quarterfinal Thursday afternoon, but for a good while on Stadium 1 at Indian Wells, Victoria Mboko<\/a> proved she is getting closer to those at the very top of the women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka, the world No. 1, beat Mboko, the rising 19-year-old Canadian upstart, 7-6(0), 6-4 in a match that was razor-tight most of the way, especially in the first set. Mboko had her chances, earning 5 break points on the afternoon \u2014 no easy feat, given Sabalenka\u2019s recent serving form. Sabalenka, though, was just a little bit better when she needed to be.<\/p>\n

She broke Mboko once from 8 break points, compared with no breaks for Mboko. And yet Mboko made Sabalenka seriously uncomfortable, especially as she crowded her second serve and pounded returns that Sabalenka sometimes had to watch whistle by. She is more used to doing that to her opponents than having it done to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I was maybe one or two points away from changing how the first set would have went, changing the momentum,\u201d Mboko said in her news conference.<\/p>\n

This was only their second meeting.<\/p>\n

In their first, at this year\u2019s Australian Open, Sabalenka had won more easily by cruising through the first set before Mboko found her feet and played the second to a tiebreak. She lost that, as she lost the one Thursday, but nobody on the WTA Tour is beating Sabalenka in tiebreaks at the moment: she is 24-2 in them over the past year.<\/p>\n

\"Aryna<\/p>\n

\n Victoria Mboko made strides from her only previous meeting against Aryna Sabalenka in January, even in defeat. (Andy Abeyta \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cBig improvement,\u201d Sabalenka said of Mboko. \u201cShe was serving much better than she did in that match in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mboko didn\u2019t disagree. She\u2019s going step-by-step, but those steps are going quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel totally different, but I feel like I\u2019m learning a lot, and I feel like that helps me prepare even more for the next match to come,\u201d she said. \u201cDo I feel like I\u2019m different myself? Not much. But I guess in my tactics, game plan, the way I execute my shots, might be a little bit more different than how I would approach them last time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Sabalenka, the result is a Friday semifinal against Linda Noskov\u00e1, who has enjoyed a tournament played on high-bouncing, slower courts just as she did the 2025 China Open in Beijing last October, when she reached the final. Noskov\u00e1 overcame a spirited performance from qualifier Talia Gibson, winning 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 to reach her second WTA 1000 semifinal. She won the other one.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Futterman<\/p>\n

How did Jannik Sinner beat Learner Tien at his own game?<\/p>\n

When a player wins a match 6-1, 6-2, and outscores their opponent 60-37, pretty much everything went right.<\/p>\n

What might have been most interesting about Jannik Sinner<\/a>\u2019s quarterfinal demolition of Learner Tien<\/a> Thursday afternoon was how different it looked from his slugfest triumph over Jo\u00e3o Fonseca<\/a> Tuesday night in the previous round.<\/p>\n

That match with Fonseca was power tennis at its utmost. Against Tien, Sinner didn\u2019t hit the ball harder than he needed. He also found a lot of love when he played angles and joysticked Tien across the baseline \u2014 something the latter has done extremely effectively against his own opponents during his rise up the rankings during the past year.<\/p>\n

The numbers told that story.<\/p>\n

Sinner won 18 cross-court forehand or backhand points, and produced poor results on those plays just 9 times, according to data from Tennis Data Innovations.<\/p>\n

When he dealt out wide from the middle, he won points 9 times and lost them just 3. The forehand down the line was deadly, too, leading to success 10 times compared with just four failures.<\/p>\n

Even more striking was how Sinner, who dictates so many matches, took Tien\u2019s attacks out of his hands. He won 55 percent of the points he played on defense, meaning that Tien did not convert even half of his attacking opportunities. Sinner\u2019s tour average for the metric is 38 percent.<\/p>\n

That is Tien\u2019s game to a T. He sends opponents on the run, opens the court, and hits to the open space. He makes players think they have won a point, and then snatches it from their grasp.<\/p>\n

The young American is 10-5 on the year and has made the quarterfinals or better in three of five tournaments. It\u2019s just really hard to win his way against someone who is even better at playing the angles than you are.<\/p>\n

Sinner now faces world No. 4 Alexander Zverev in the semifinals. Zverev, who outplayed Arthur Fils in a 6-2, 6-3 win, is just the fifth player to reach the semifinals of all nine ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, after Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Futterman<\/p>\n

A familiar matchup?<\/p>\n

After Daniil Medvedev\u2019s comprehensive and belatedly controversial win over Jack Draper<\/a> in their quarterfinal, Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> came out to face Cameron Norrie<\/a>, one of the few players outside of Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic who has troubled him the past few years.<\/p>\n

He did so again in fits and starts Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Norrie managed to force Alcaraz to come forward more than he needed to, because his awkward, low backhand into the Spaniard\u2019s forehand made baseline rallies uncomfortable. He managed to send tricky returns back when his opponent serve-and-volleyed. His stock game, with a spinning forehand and a skidding backhand, did what it normally does and sowed some doubt in Alcaraz\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

And yet he was outclassed in every department, as Alcaraz belied those difficulties to surge into his fifth Indian Wells semifinal, which remains his worst result at this tournament outside of his first appearance in 2021, when he lost to Andy Murray in the second round. The world No. 1 triumphed 6-3, 6-4, never truly uncomfortable despite his moments of frustration with Norrie\u2019s awkward tennis and some scratchy errors sprinkled through the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of confusing sometimes,\u201d Alcaraz said of playing the Brit in his on-court interview. \u201cTennis is about choosing the right shot within a second, so sometimes I missed the shot because I didn\u2019t choose the right one. In my mind I have, like, seven options, so sometimes it\u2019s tricky for me to choose the right shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win sets up Alcaraz\u2019s third meeting with Medvedev at Indian Wells. The other two were finals, both of which the Spaniard won. The Russian has been loving the conditions in the Coachella Valley this year, especially on the quicker Stadium 2; the slower Stadium 1 court will ask him to generate a little more ball speed of his own.<\/p>\n

\u2014 James Hansen<\/p>\n

\u00a0Up next: Women\u2019s semifinals<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfbe Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Linda Noskov\u00e1 (14)<\/p>\n

7 p.m. ET (11 p.m. UK) on Tennis Channel\/Sky Sports<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Sabalenka is back in another Indian Wells semifinal, after performing imperiously for most of the tournament. When she has been a little ragged, she has won in straight sets anyway. Noskov\u00e1 has taken a more circuitous route to her second WTA 1000 semifinal, but her game is suited to the conditions at Indian Wells, especially on its hotter days, and has the power to take the match out of Sabalenka\u2019s hands \u2014 if Sabalenka does not do it to her first.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfbe Elena Rybakina (3) vs. Elina Svitolina (9)<\/p>\n

Not before 9 p.m. ET (1 a.m. Saturday) on Tennis Channel\/Sky Sports<\/p>\n

Rybakina and Svitolina\u2019s head-to-head stands at 3-3, spread across all three surfaces. Svitolina used the slicker conditions of Stadium 2 to help upset Iga \u015awi\u0105tek Thursday afternoon; now on Stadium 1, she may be able to take the ball out of Rybakina\u2019s strike zone more often. Rybakina, who will be the new world No. 2 Monday whatever the result in this one, played her cleanest match of the tournament to beat Jessica Pegula Thursday. She will hope to go up one more level.<\/p>\n

Tell us what you noticed in the quarterfinals\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow The Athletic\u2019s coverage of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells The quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-534098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}