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Canada’s Victoria Mboko was eliminated from the Indian Wells BNP Paribas Open on Thursday following a 7-6 (0), 6-4 quarterfinal loss to world No. 1 Aryna Sabalanka in California. <\/p>\n
Sabalenka scored the only break of the match in the second set and defended all five break points she faced. <\/p>\n
It was the second meeting of the season between Sabalenka and Mboko, a rising star from Burlington, Ont., who was seeded 10th at the WTA 1000 event. <\/p>\n
The Belarusian star beat Mboko in straight sets in the fourth round of the Australian Open. <\/p>\n
Mboko, 19, made her second straight WTA 1000 quarterfinal appearance after reaching the final of an event last month in Doha, Qatar. <\/p>\n
She has a 16-5 record so far this season.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz, Medvedev set to clash in semis<\/p>\n
World number one Carlos Alcaraz charged past Cameron Norrie 6-3 6-4 to set up a semifinal with Daniil Medvedev after the Russian ended Jack Draper’s title defence with a 6-17-5 win following a controversial umpiring call.<\/p>\n
Australian Open champion Alcaraz improved his record to 16-0 to start the year with a solid display against a tricky opponent in the final contest of the evening to remain on course for a third Indian Wells crown.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard eased through the opening set and though he was briefly in \u200btrouble at 0-2 down in the second he quickly regained the momentum to see off \u200bBriton Norrie and set up a meeting with twice runner-up Medvedev.<\/p>\n
“It was really difficult, I struggled with Cameron’s style,” Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
“His forehand has super top-spin and his backhands are flat so it’s tricky to play against him and find the correct shots. I played solid \u200band aggressive when I could and I’m happy to be at this level.”<\/p>\n
Russian 11th seed Medvedev was also in impressive form \u2060against Briton Draper, who had little time \u2060to recover after his stunning three-set win over Novak Djokovic on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Draper raised his level \u200cin the second set and stayed with his opponent up to 5-5 but Medvedev secured a late break after a controversial hindrance call from chair umpire Aurelie Tourte.<\/p>\n
Medvedev was awarded a point to go 30-0 up following a late video review request after the Russian said he was distracted by Draper’s raised arm during the rally when the Briton thought the ball went out.<\/p>\n
Draper insisted he had not caused a major distraction \u2060but the umpire stuck with her decision to award Medvedev the point, prompting jeers from the crowd when the call was made.<\/p>\n
“If you look at the first forehand I did after it happened, I think I could have done a better shot if there was no gesture from Jack,” Medvedev told reporters.<\/p>\n
“Was I distracted big time? No. Do I \u200cfeel good about it? Not really. But I also don’t feel like I cheated or something. I got a bit distracted. I let it go and I let the umpire decide.”<\/p>\n
Fourth seed Alexander Zverev beat Frenchman Arthur Fils 6-2 6-3 to make the semi-finals for the first time and become only the fifth man to complete the set of last-four appearances at all nine ATP Masters 1000 events.<\/p>\n
The German faces a big challenge in \u200bthe next round, however, as he takes on world number two Jannik Sinner after the Italian made light work of American Learner Tien 6-1 6-2.<\/p>\n
Svitolina upsets Swiatek<\/p>\n
Iga Swiatek was unable to find her way past Elina Svitolina and fell 6-2 4-6 6-4. The world number two Swiate, with the Ukrainian capitalizing \u2060on five double faults to secure three breaks and take the opening set in 38 minutes.<\/p>\n
She found her rhythm in the second to force a decider, but \u2060Svitolina regained the upper hand by securing the only break in a tight third set before confidently closing out the match to return to the semis for \u2060the first \u2060time in seven years.<\/p>\n
Belarusian Sabalenka had a battle on her \u200bhands against Mboko and the top seed was taken to a first-set tiebreak which she won to love – a career first.<\/p>\n
The second set followed a similar script with Mboko \u200bclawing her back to 5-4 and threatening another \u2060tiebreak but four-times Grand Slam champion Sabalenka held firm.<\/p>\n
“She’s a future Grand Slam champion,” Sabalenka said. “It’s incredible to see how brave these young girls are these days.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka next plays Linda Noskova, who ended Australian qualifier Talia Gibson’s fairytale run 6-2 4-6 6-2, the Czech reaching her second WTA 1000 semi-final.<\/p>\n
Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina advanced with a 6-1 7-6(4) victory over Jessica Pegula to reach another Indian Wells semi-final where she will play Svitolina.<\/p>\n
Victory ensured Rybakina will leapfrog Swiatek and reach a career-high world number two when the WTA rankings are \u2060updated on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-534195","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\/534195","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=534195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}