INDIAN WELLS
\nWorld number two Aryna \u200cSabalenka got her WTA Finals campaign off to a winning start with a hard-fought victory over Karolina Muchova, while Mirra Andreeva eased past Elina Svitolina as Group 2 action got underway on Monday. Making her sixth consecutive appearance at the season-ending tournament, Sabalenka had to work hard to overcome a determined Muchova 7-6(2) 7-5, with the Czech making her debut at the event after a breakthrough season that included titles in Doha and Bad Homburg and a run to the Wimbledon final.
\nThe Belarusian, who is seeking her first WTA Finals crown, had to dig deep in \u200cthe opening \u200cset, breaking back when Muchova served for it at \u200c5-4 before dominating the ensuing tiebreak to take the lead after almost an hour. Sabalenka appeared to have gained control in the second set with a 4-2 lead, but the Czech refused to go away, breaking back when her opponent was serving for the match to level at 5-5.
\nMuchova\u2019s resistance proved short-lived, however, as Sabalenka broke again before finally serving out the contest. \u201cShe\u2019s such an incredible player. Always tough battles. I was just \u200ctrying to stay calm and focus point \u200cby point. She can come back any time. You have to be \u200cfocused from beginning till the end,\u201d Sabalenka said on court.
\n\u201cI\u2019m super \u200chappy with the level I played. To get the first win, it\u2019s really important. Great start.\u201d In a meeting between youth and experience, French Open champion Andreeva made an impressive debut by dispatching the 2018 WTA Finals champion Svitolina 6-4 \u200c6-0. The Russian needed just one break of serve to take the opening set before raising her level considerably in the second, where she swept through all six games to complete a commanding victory.
\nSvitolina, who beat Andreeva at the Australian Open, struggled to find answers this time around, failing to convert any of the six break points she earned. \u201cI was trying to think about was that she beat me in Australia earlier this year.
\nI really tried not to think about the match we had last year on these courts,\u201d Andreeva said of her 2025 Indian Wells win over Svitolina. \u201cI remember how I was playing when I beat her here, but I knew it would be a tricky match. She\u2019s an amazing player. I\u2019m just very happy I was able to get through the match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INDIAN WELLS World number two Aryna \u200cSabalenka got her WTA Finals campaign off to a winning start with a hard-fought victory over Karolina Muchova, while Mirra Andreeva eased past Elina Svitolina as Group 2 action got underway on Monday. Making her sixth consecutive appearance at the season-ending tournament, Sabalenka had to work hard to overcome …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105766,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105752\/revisions\/105766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}