Sabalenka looking for 'revenge' after setting up Keys meeting at Indian Wells

The Belarusian took just 84 minutes to seal her place in the next round, triumphing 6-2 6-3 on Thursday to set up a rematch of the Australian Open final against Madison Keys.

As she has before at this tournament, Sabalenka made a sluggish start, seeing her serve broken in the first game.

However, she fought back after going 2-0 down and reeled off the next six games in a row to take the first set, taking the lead after converting on the second set-point attempt.

Sabalenka then raced into a 3-0 lead in the second set, taking her winning run to nine games, but Samsonova dug deep to level the score, defending a break point on the way.

She could not hold onto her momentum though, as Sabalenka then won the next three games to see out the match with little fuss.

The world number one has already faced Keys once this season, seeing her hopes of a three-peat at the Australian Open quashed by the American, and she is looking forward to facing off against her again.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST @SabalenkaA emphatically seals her way into the last four of Indian Wells, taking out Samsonova 6-2, 6-3!#TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/3gqLRXfteZ

— wta (@WTA) March 14, 2025

"I'm excited. I'm really excited. I really hope I can do a little bit better than I did in Australia," she said.

"It's only coming to my mind as motivation to get back that revenge. It was a tough match. She played great there.

"I didn't play my best, and I'm really happy that [on Friday] I will have the opportunity to get this revenge back."

Keys also emerged victorious in straight sets to reach the semi-finals, beating Belinda Bencic 6-1 6-1 to become the third-oldest player to secure 16+ consecutive wins since 1990, younger only than Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams.

The other semi-final will see Iga Swiatek face off against Mirra Andreeva, who at 17 years and 318 days, is now the youngest player to reach multiple and consecutive WTA-1000 semi-finals, surpassing Victoria Azarenka (19y 280d) on the latter.

She beat Elina Svitolina 7-5 6-3 in her quarter-final match in 90 minutes.

Each of the four semi-finalists in Indian Wells are now in the top four for WTA match wins in 2025 - Keys (18), Swiatek (18), Andreeva (17) and Sabalenka (16, now level with Clara Tauson).