NAN-S-1
Venus
Indian Wells (California), March 17, 2017 (Reuters/NAN) Elena Vesnina denied Venus Williams another comeback win to reach the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
Williams, who survived match points against Jelena Jankovic and was down a break in the third against Peng Shuai, fought off three match points in the eighth game.
She also had six chances to bring it back on serve before the 14th-seeded Russian finally hold to finish a gutsy 6-2 4-6 6-3 win.
The 30-year-old Vesnina, a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2016, ripped a forehand putaway off, a backhand from 12th seed Williams that clipped the netcord to end the two-hour 11 minute battle in the California desert.
Vesnina, who ousted second seed Angelique Kerber to reach the quarters, said in an on-court interview that “at the end of the match, I don’t know how I won that game from 0-40.
“In the first set, it was a little bit slow and I missed some easy balls. But then in the second set, Venus was back and I was in trouble.”
Mladenovic, the 28th seed, continued an impressive run of form, beating 13th seed and 2011 winner Wozniacki 3-6 7-6(4) 6-2 to reach her first Premier Mandatory semi-final and guarantee her debut in the Top 20 in next week’s WTA rankings.
The 23-year-old Frenchwoman 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 in March
in Acapulco.
“She’s on fire. So am I,” said Vesnina.
She, however, added that “one of us can be in the final. We will see tomorrow.”
Mladenovic wasted a slew of opportunities, squandering nine break points as she fell behind 1-5 in the opening set.
“I was very frustrated with the beginning of the match. I was hitting a lot of unforced errors,” she said.
Mladenovic recovered from an early break in the second to move ahead 5-3 before levelling the match 7-4 in the tiebreak.
Painting the lines in the third set, Mladenovic broke twice and served out the two hour 33 minute win.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that third seed Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic will meet eighth-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in the women’s semi-final. (Reuters/NAN)
VO/HA
======
Edited by Victor Okoye/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu