BNP Paribas Open Match Preview
Steve Tignor: It can take many months, or even years, for two players to give us a rematch of a classic final. Sabalenka and Swiatek, to name two top-level WTA rivals, hardly ever seem to play outside of Madrid. Sabalenka and Keys, by contrast, will follow their down-to-the-wire Australian Open title match from January with a much-hoped-for Indian Wells semifinal on Friday.
Keys, 30, won 7-5 in the third set in Melbourne to claim her first major title after a dozen years and more than 40 tries. But her fast start to 2025 goes beyond that. She’s 18-1 this season, has won two titles in three events, and is on a 16-match win streak.
After skipping all of February, Keys showed some rust against Elise Mertens and Donna Vekic this week. Against the former, she took an extra set to close it out; against the latter, she had to come back from a set down, and escape a second-set tiebreaker 9-7, to survive.
By Thursday, though, Keys was dialed back in. She faced an in-form Belinda Bencic, and made quick work of her, 6-1, 6-1. Afterward, the 15-year veteran admitted that this is the most confident she has ever felt.
