INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — Madison Keys extended her winning streak to 16 matches, reaching the BNP Paribas Open semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 wipeout of wild-card entry Belinda Bencic on Thursday.
The Australian Open champion needed just 65 minutes to set up a possible meeting with top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, who was playing Liudmila Samsonova later. Keys beat Sabalenka in three sets in January at Melbourne Park, denying Sabalenka a third consecutive title.
Bencic was coming off an upset of No. 4 seed Coco Gauff in the fourth round, but the 28-year-old from Switzerland never had a chance against the third-seeded Keys.
Iga Swiatek reached the semifinals at Indian Wells for the fourth consecutive time in her bid to be the first woman to win the tournament three times. The No. 2 seed from Poland beat eighth-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China 6-3, 6-3 in a rematch of a Paris Olympics semifinal from last summer won by Zheng.
Swiatek, the defending champion, has a 10-match winning streak in the California desert. The five-time Grand Slam champion also won the event in 2022. Zheng ended Swiatek’s 25-match winning streak at the Olympics last year.
