In the first final since 2019 having two Grand Slam champions play for the Indian Wells title, Elena Rybakina got her revenge against Aryna Sabalenka.
Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina avenged her Australian Open loss to Aryna Sabalenka, defeating the No.2 seed 7-6(11), 6-4 to win her first Indian Wells WTA 1000 title.
It is the first final in the tournament's history between two reigning Grand Slam champions since Naomi Osaka - Ashleigh Barty in Beijing 2019.
Match recap
The Kazakh was the better player after a rollercoaster of high-quality tennis in the first set, where she won the opening set on her sixth set point, forcing Sabalenka to hit ten double faults after 79 minutes of play.
Rybakina broke to love in the opening game of the second set, and consolidated on it for a 2-0 lead. She tried to serve it out under pressure, with Sabalenka having three break points.
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The World No.2 backed up her break, and Rybakina got one more chance to close it out, which she did to secure her fourth career title, dropping just one set throughout the tournament.
Incredible feats of Rybakina’s win
With this victory, she is the first player to defeat World No.1 and No.2 at the semi-final and final of a single tournament since Garbine Muguruza in Cincinnati (2017).
Rybakina is also the 25th female player to secure the title in Indian Wells and became the 41st player to secure a WTA-1000 title - since 2009.
Sabalenka interjects Rybakina’s speech
The subtle Rybakina was full of praises for Sabalenka and her team, hoping there’ll be more finals between both of them to which the Australian Open champion has a different opinion.
“I want to congratulate Aryna for the great two weeks, the great results this year and the year before you, you’ve done an amazing job with your team so congratulations,” Rybakina said.
“Yea, it’s actually the first time it went my way so we’ll see before the end of the year many more finals,” she added. “I’ll make sure it was the last one,” Sabalenka jokingly interjected immediately. “No, we’ll see next time,” Rybakina replied.
Rybakina will reach a career-high ranking of World No.7 on Monday, up three spots from No.10.
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