{"id":501343,"date":"2026-03-03T14:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501343\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:15:13","slug":"sabalenka-rybakina-swiatek-martina-navratilova-predicts-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501343\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka, Rybakina, Swiatek? Martina Navratilova predicts winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has named Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina as the two \u201cclear frontrunners\u201d as she predicted who will win the 2026 Indian Wells Open.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/elena-rybakina\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rybakina<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/aryna-sabalenka\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sabalenka<\/a> faced off in the Australian Open championship match in January, with the former prevailing in three sets.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka has not played since her defeat at the Melbourne Grand Slam, having pulled out of the WTA 1000 events in Doha and Dubai in February.<\/p>\n<p>Rybakina withdrew from the WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi before reaching the quarter-finals in Doha and the third round in Dubai \u2014 where she retired mid-match.<\/p>\n<p>In the WTA Rankings, Sabalenka is the world No 1 with 10,675 points, ahead of No 2 Iga Swiatek on 7,588 points and third-ranked Rybakina on 7,253 points.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the WTA website, Navratilova identified Rybakina\u2019s return to action as the biggest headline ahead of Indian Wells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest one is that Rybakina is back,\u201d said the 18-time major singles champion. \u201cWinning the Australian Open, she played the best tennis when it mattered most. She was holding her nerves better than Sabalenka in the final and won in three.<\/p>\n<p>WTA Tour News<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/wta-rankings-swiatek-rybakina-and-gauff-pegula-nip-and-tuck-raducanu-1-bucsa-and-townsend-32\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WTA Rankings: Swiatek-Rybakina, and Gauff-Pegula nip and tuck, Raducanu +1, Bucsa and Townsend +32<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/serena-williams-comeback-former-british-star-makes-lavish-claim-over-what-she-can-achieve\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Serena Williams comeback: Former British star makes lavish claim over what she can achieve<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Want more from Tennis365? Add us as <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=tennis365.com\" target=\"_blank\">a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was ill after Australia, which happens a lot. It\u2019s normal to get sick after a major. More often than not, I got sick after Wimbledon and the US Open because the body just goes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter skipping Abu Dhabi, I\u2019m hoping her immune system is okay. She won three matches in Doha and Abu Dhabi, so let\u2019s see how she\u2019s feeling in the desert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The former world No 1 was asked who will win the women\u2019s singles event in Indian Wells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou still have to go with Sabalenka because she\u2019s got the weapons,\u201d said the Czech-American.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, the way everything is going, if Rybakina is fully healthy, they are the top two players, clear frontrunners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey might come close to the level of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz if they keep going this way unless Coco [Gauff] figures things out and Swiatek gets her mojo back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think she (Sabalenka) will be out for revenge. Knowing her, Sabalenka is hoping she\u2019s going to play Rybakina at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rybakina won the Indian Wells title in 2023, while Sabalenka was a runner-up in 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/felix-auger-aliassime-indian-wells-dubai-update\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Felix Auger-Aliassime update: Will he play Indian Wells after Dubai appearance?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has named Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina as the two \u201cclear frontrunners\u201d as she&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-501343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}