INDIAN WELLS: Elena Vesnina denied Venus Williams another comeback win, beating the seven-time Grand Slam champion 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 on Thursday night to reach the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
Vesnina staved off six break points in the last game, falling behind 40-love to start, before closing out the 71-minute match with two forehand winners.
Venus overcame three match points on her serve on three straight errors by Vesnina in the eighth game that featured six deuces and lasted for nine minutes.
“I was really fighting like it’s the last game of my life,” Vesnina said. “I start serving with a little bit less power and a bit more pace. Couple of kind of big points she gave me unforced error, and I stick to this game. I was like, ‘I’m never going to lose this game’.”
The 14th-seeded Russian will play Kristina Mladenovic for a place in the final after the French player’s 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 victory over former world number one Caroline Wozniacki.
The 23-year-old Mladenovic improved to 16-5 on the season, a run which includes her first career title in St. Petersburg, and an appearance in the final earlier this month in Acapulco.
In a match involving the two lowest remaining men’s seeds, 21st seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain edged 27th-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4) to reach the semi-finals.
Carreno Busta saved two match points in the third, including when Cuevas fell on a backhand leading 5-4, 4-30.
Cuevas tied it 3-all in the tiebreak before Carreno Busta won the final five points to close out the two-hour match.
He will play third seed Stan Wawrinka, who raised his game on the big points and dominated the climactic third-set tiebreaker to beat Dominic Thiem 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2).
Wawrinka, who six months ago beat Novak Djokovic to win the US Open, won a gripping slugfest against the 23-year-old Austrian, hammering home five third-set aces including one to reach quadruple match point in the tiebreak.
Comments
Post a Comment