Sabalenka looked comfortable from start to finish against the 21-year-old first-time Indian Wells semifinalist, and she quickly took control of her second career meeting with the Czech, racing out to a double-break 5-1 lead and claiming the set in relatively short order.<\/p>\n
More of the same followed in the second set, as Sabalenka punished hard-serving Noskova \u2014 the tournament\u2019s ace leader heading into the match \u2014 with stinging returns and relentless pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery service game for Noskova just feels like there is so much pressure on her just to try and hold,\u201d said two-time Indian Wells champion Lindsay Davenport, who commentated the match for Tennis Channel. \u201cTough when you get down early breaks in both sets. She\u2019s never been able to play with any kind of lead or freedom in this match.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be fair, there were signs of life from the rising Czech as she sank her teeth into the match late in the second set.<\/p>\n
She put her serving prowess on display as she saved a pair of break points to hold for 3-2, keeping the deficit to a single break. Noskova even managed a break point with Sabalenka serving at 4-3, 30-40 in set two, but three consecutive giant serves brought the World No. 1 to the brink of victory at 6-3, 5-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe serve was the biggest key in this match,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cShe\u2019s an incredible player. She played really aggressively and served well. I felt like if I gave her small opportunities, she would take them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka finished the job two games later, cracking a forehand winner into the open court to close the match in one hour and 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
She will face either Elena Rybakina or Elina Svitolina in Sunday\u2019s final.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sabalenka looked comfortable from start to finish against the 21-year-old first-time Indian Wells semifinalist, and she quickly took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-522926","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\/522926","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=522926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}