WTA: The night in Indian Wells belongs to the ladies

Venus Williams from the USA is still in the two semi-finals (Saturday, from 03:00 on DAZN) of Indian Wells. However, the favourite for the title is probably world number one Simona Halep.

Of fatigue after the mainly mental efforts in 29. Sister Act had no effect on Venus Williams in their quarter-final against Carla Suarez Navarro. 6:3 and 6:2, that’s a professional result for the seven-time major winner, who thus reached the semi-finals in Indian Wells for the first time since 2001. However, this was also the year when Venus could not compete against Serena due to an injury – which led to such unpleasant reactions in the audience that the Williams sisters avoided the event for a long time, which would like to see itself as the fifth Grand Slam tournament.

She feels fantastic, explained the great old lady of women’s tennis after her success against the Spaniard. This is probably also because the year for Venus has not yet been able to meet their high expectations. The 37-year-old was able to quickly put the Australian Open final behind her after the first-round elimination against Belinda Bencic, and even after that the 49-times tournament winner was not doing well. Number 50 has been a long time coming, Venus Williams won the last title in Kaohsiung in 2016.

Daria Kasatkina is now waiting for a player against whom the US player has a balanced record – both previous matches took place in 2016. Venus won in Wimbledon, Kasatkina before in Auckland. In her match against Angelique Kerber, the Russian left a sovereign, calm impression. No wonder: In the round before, the 20-year-old bid farewell to the world’s number two and current Australian Open winner Caroline Wozniacki.

The cards in the second semi-final are already more unequally distributed: Simona Halep enters her match against the amazing Naomi Osaka with a 3-0 career record. For the Japanese player, her appearance in the semifinal round of the WTA Premier 5 tournament will be the greatest sporting challenge of her tennis life. The last match between the two players wasn’t so long ago, Halep beat Osaka 6-3 and 6-2 on their way to the Australian Open final.

However, the two matches before, in Miami last year and at the French Open 2016, each went over three sets. And Simona Halep will be warned: After all, Naomi Osaka had significantly fewer problems in her quarter-final against Karolina Pliskova than the Romanian with Petra Martic.

Here the single tableau of the ladies in Indian Wells