Rising Russian star Mirra Andreeva became the first 17-year-old player to reach the women’s final at Indian Wells since 2001 after overcoming defending champion Iga Swiatek in the last four.
She beat the world number two for the second time in as many tournaments, after knocking her out at the quarter-final stage in Dubai in February on her way to becoming the youngest winner of a WTA 1000 tournament.
Andreeva extended her winning streak to 11 matches as she bounced back from losing a one-sided second set to beat the experienced Pole 7-6 (7-1) 1-6 6-3.
She will face top seed Aryna Sabalenka in the final after the Belarusian avenged her defeat by American Madison Keys at the Australian Open in brutal fashion to win 6-0 6-1.
“I feel that I was dealing with the nerves and the pressure pretty good, so I just feel proud of myself,” said ninth seed Andreeva on her recovery in the final set.
“After she literally killed me in the second set, I was just ‘well, OK, might just try to fight’. There is not much I could do about it. She was playing amazing.
“And I just kind of decided to grind and fight for every point. It doesn’t matter how I put the ball in. But I have to put it in. So I just try to do everything and in the end, it was not too bad.”
Andreeva is the youngest woman to reach the Indian Wells final since Kim Clijsters, who lost to Serena Williams in 2001.
She will face another big test in world number one Sabalenka, who took just 51 minutes to dismiss fifth seed Keys.
It was a repeat of their Australian Open final, which Keys won 6-3 2-6 7-5 to end Sabalenka’s hopes of a third consecutive title in Melbourne.
“That Australian Open match was really heartbreaking for me, and I really needed some time to recover after that,” said Sabalenka.
“And if I would lose today again, it would get in my head and I didn’t want that to happen. I was really focused, so I was just really hungry to get this win against Madison.”
