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SPORTS Friday 17 March 2017

Mladenovic reaches Indian Wells

semis and top 20 in rankings

BETH HARRIS slipped away. She had two-hour match.
AP Sports Writer some big forehands when It was the biggest singles
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) she needed to and then quarterfinal of their respec-
— Kristina Mladenovic out- I see myself down 5-2, tive careers. Carreno Bus-
lasted Caroline Wozniacki and it could maybe have ta had not reached that
3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 to reach been different.” stage of a Masters 1000
the semifinals of the BNP There were 11 service event in 17 previous tries;
Paribas Open on Thursday breaks in the 2 ½-hour Cuevas hadn’t been there
and break into the top 20 match played in 91 de- in 29 tries.
in the WTA Tour rankings gree (32 C) heat. Carreno Busta avenged
for the first time in her ca- Mladenovic will play the his loss to Cuevas in the Kristina Mladenovic, of France, returns a shot to Caroline Wozni-
reer. winner of a later match Sao Paulo semifinals on acki, of Denmark, at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament,
Thursday, March 16, 2017, in Indian Wells, Calif.
Neither Mladenovic nor between 12th-seeded Ve- March 6 and in the process Associated Press
Wozniacki had dropped a nus Williams and No. 14 snapped Cuevas’ seven-
set before their quarterfi- Elena Vesnina. match winning streak. ther No. 3 Stan Wawrinka who met in an evening
nal. Wozniacki rallied from No. 3 Karolina Pliskova Carreno Busta will play ei- or No. 8 Dominic Thiem, quarterfinal.q
a 4-2 deficit in the second and Svetlana Kuznetsova
set to force the tiebreaker, are set for the other semi-
but the former world No. final.
1 and 2011 Indian Wells Besides moving up in the
winner never led in the tie- world rankings, Mlade-
breaker. novic becomes the new
Wozniacki held for a 2-1 No. 1 in France, overtak-
lead in the third set and ing countrywoman Caro-
then had her right foot line Garcia by virtue of her
heavily taped by a trainer. results in the desert.
She went on to lose the “I see that it’s paying off,
final five games and the that the results are com-
match, making the 28th- ing,” Mladenovic said.
seeded Mladenovic the “The ranking is just the con-
lowest seed to reach the sequence of all the work
semis. you put on a daily basis.
“I didn’t break her when Eventually, you’re playing
I had the opportunity,” those great matches bet-
Wozniacki said. “I didn’t ter and better and give
hold when I had the op- yourself a chance to win
portunity and all of sud- them, and then the rank-
den those games kind of ing obviously follows.”
Like us on In a match involving the
remaining
lowest
two
Facebook men’s seeds, No. 21 Pab-
lo Carreno Busta of Spain
edged 27th-seeded Pablo
Cuevas of Uruguay, 6-1,
3-6 7-6 (4).
Cuevas tied it 3-all in the
tiebreak before Carreno
Busta won the final five
facebook.com/bondianoticia points to close out the