Beijing time, March 18: The BNP Paribas tennis tournament in Indian Wells, USA, ended the ninth matchday at noon Beijing time. 21st Grand Slam champion Spain's Nadal defeated Australian player Kyrgios Kyrgios with a wild card after three sets to get the first ticket to the men's singles semi-finals and will compete with compatriot Alcaraz for a ticket to the final. The last two semi-final spots in the women's singles have also produced Greek macho Sakkari and defending champions Spain's Bardoza will compete for final qualification in the second half. The Chinese duo of Xu Yipan and Yang Zhaoxuan reported success in the women's doubles arena, and they beat a pair of multinational pairs to get tickets to the final. Let's take a look at the latest news from the tennis arena.
Today is the ninth matchday of this year's Indian Wells Tournament, and according to the schedule, the women's singles lower half and the men's singles top half of the quarterfinals will be played. The first match played at Stadium 1 was the women's singles quarterfinals played by No. 6 seed Greek player Sakkari against No. 17 seed Kazakh Lebakina. The two met once in the 2020 semi-final in St. Petersburg when Lebakina won, which was considered a drawn-off by all parties before the match. The match began at 2:00 a.m. Beijing time today, and the referee of the match was Zhang Juan, the gold medal referee from China. The two began to fight each other, and after the first set was 5-5, Sakkari took the initiative in the first set with a 7-5 victory with a key break. After entering the second set, Sakkari opened the game with a break and maintained the break advantage until the end to win another set 6-4 to complete the first win against the opponent and also got the third women's singles semifinal ticket.
Today's second match is still the women's singles quarterfinals, with the tournament's defending champion No. 5 seed Spanish player Bardoza facing the 21st seed Russian player Kudmetova. The two have won all three previous encounters against Kudmetova, the most recent of which was in the semi-finals of last year's Charleston Tournament, but before the match, all parties were optimistic that Badosa would win. The match began at 4:00 a.m. Beijing time today in The No. 1 Stadium, after the game began, Bardoza was in full control of the game, and it took only 83 minutes to sweep Kudmetova with a score of 6-3, 6-2 to get the ticket to the final four of the women's singles, and she will compete with Sakkari, who was previously promoted, for the right to the final.
The men's singles quarterfinals were staged after the women's singles match, with the first match played between the 21st Grand Slam champion Nadal, the no. 4 seed, and the Australian player Kyrgios, who played with a wild card. The two have played each other 8 times before Nadal have a 5-3 win advantage, the most recent of which occurred in the fourth round of the 2020 Australian Open when Nadal won four sets, and all parties were still optimistic about Nadal winning before the game. After the game began, Kyrgios entered the form faster and broke in the third set, but Nadal did not give up on The tenth set of Kyrgios's service to win the set to achieve a return break to chase the score to 5-5, and the first set after each win was won by grabbing seven. In the seventh, Nadal was in complete control of the game and scored six consecutive points to take a 6-0 lead, and then Kyrgios was emotionally out of control and was warned by the referee for a second time to directly deduct a point so that Nadal won the first set of the game with a 7-0 steal. The two continued to fight after entering the second set, and after the first ten sets were 5-5, Kyrgios completed the save to take a 6-5 lead, and then completed the break in Nadal's unsurpassed serve to pull the game back in a set 7-5 to drag the game into the decider. After entering the decider, Nadal once again improved his competitive form and won the match with a break advantage to win the decider 6-4 to get the first men's singles semi-final ticket. Nadal will face his compatriot Alcaraz, the 19th seed, in the semi-finals, who eliminated defending champions 12th seeded British player Nori in two straight sets in today's match.
The victory in this game allowed Nadal to extend his season unbeaten to 19, which was also his 953rd outdoor victory, which equaled Federer's record of victory on outdoor venues. Nadal has now won 19 straight games in hard court and is the second-longest winning streak he has maintained in hard court in his career. In the post-match press conference, Nadal kept an eye on the match between compatriots Akar Callas and Nori. Nadal said: "He reminds me of a lot of my own stories when I was 17 or 8 years old. Selfishly, I'm really happy to have such a young rising star from Spain. Because for all those who love tennis, they will be able to enjoy a lot of wonderful tennis for many years to come! Rafa praised Alcaraz for his great passion and talent for tennis, while being "humble enough to train hard". Evaluate the little fellow's tennis career will be unstoppable success! But Nadal said he didn't give Alcaraz any advice: "Because he didn't ask me and he has a great team of his own." ”
The last match today was also played in the women's doubles, with the last match being a women's doubles semi-final played by the continental duo of 2018 Asian Games champions Xu Yipan/Yang Zhaoxuan against a combination of France's Coney and Canada's Fernandez. In this match, the Chinese duo played well in 1 hour and 16 minutes to defeat the opponent 7-5, 6-1 to win the match and win a ticket to the final. They will compete for the title with a combination of The 7th seed of the tournament, Dodd Heller of the United States, and Eicho Shibahara of Japan. The latter advanced to the final in another semi-final today over 5-seeded Canadian Dabrowski and Mexican player Walmos.
Indian Wells has entered the final stages of the game, starting tomorrow in the early morning will be the last two men's singles quarter-finals and women's singles two semi-finals, we will continue to pay attention to the coverage of the event.