MADRID, 19 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa has been eliminated from the Indian Wells tournament (United States), of the WTA 1,000 category and played on hard court, after falling in the semifinals against the Greek Maria Sakkari (6-2, 4-6, 6-1 ), so he will not be able to defend the title won last year.
The Catalan, who had left behind Tereza Martincova, Sara Sorribes, Leylah Fernandez and Veronika Kudermetova to reach her second semis of the season, finally succumbed to the number 6 in the world, who will seek the title against the Polish Iga Swiatek in a battle for number two in the WTA ranking.
Although he started breaking, Badosa suffered a ‘counterbreak’ that allowed Sakkari to link four consecutive wins, all in a set that the Hellenic tennis player took the rest after achieving 11 winning shots -by 2 of the Spanish-.
Again, the number seven in the world broke the balance again with a break in the third game of the second set. The Greek hit her back, but Badosa broke her opponent’s serve again to equalize the contest, which went to the third and final set.
In it, after a couple of exchanges of ‘breaks’ at the beginning, Sakkari put the direct to close the match in one hour and 48 minutes winning the last four games. With this, the passage to his second final of the season was guaranteed -after the one in Saint Petersburg- and prevented Badosa from repeating the title in the Californian desert, something that only the Czech Martina Navratilova (1991) has achieved so far.