For a woman who uses the moniker “SakkAttack” on social media, aggression has not always come naturally to Maria Sakkari – particularly in semi-finals.
Equipped with a battering-ram forehand, one of the biggest serves in the women’s game and a work ethic that has moulded her into one of the sport’s most formidable athletes, Sakkari has the firepower and physicality to dominate just about anyone on her day.
The problem for the Greek has been that such days have too rarely come at the business end of tournaments. Sakkari had been undone in all but four of her previous 19 semi-finals going into her showdown with Paula Badosa at Indian Wells, and must have feared further heartbreak when the Spanish defending champion hit back to level the contest after Sakkari had made a dominant start.
That the Greek sixth seed was able to shake off a mid-match lull and reach the biggest final of her career was testimony to the lessons she has learned from those past setbacks.
“I think I started the match really well,” said Sakkari, who broke down in tears after winning 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 to avenge her group-stage defeat to Badosa at last year’s WTA Finals.
“I was very aggressive from the beginning and I was trying to find different ways to play her from the last time I played her in Mexico. I think we had the right strategy. I took my foot off the gas in the second set. Obviously she started playing a lot better, she was more solid. But I’m very proud with the way I came back in the third set.”
Sakkari’s fortitude down the home straight spoke of a self-knowledge forged by adversity. At last year’s French Open, where she came within a point of beating Barbora Krejcikova to reach her first grand slam final, Sakkari was left lamenting her passivity. “I didn’t go for it,” she reflected. “I just didn’t play offensive.”
The hangover from that loss extended all the way to her defeat against Emma Raducanu three months later in the US Open semi-finals, after which she spoke of her failure to “push her with my game” and of “bad memories” from her reversal in Paris.
This time, she was determined there would be no cause for regret.
The moment of crisis for Sakkari came in the fifth game of the second set, when she paid a heavy price for a moment of hesitation. On the opening point, having gained the upper hand with a deep off-backhand, she failed to get enough penetration on an approach shot, allowing the scrambling Badosa to throw up a deep lob. Again Sakkari demurred, letting the ball bounce rather than going for an overhead, and Badosa capitalised with a booming forehand. It looked like an innocuous moment, but the exchange seemed to unsettle Sakkari, who promptly double-faulted and went on to make a complete hash of a drop shot on the second of three break points.
With Badosa visibly growing in confidence, Sakkari remained impressively committed to her shots. It was not enough to get her back in the set but, as she later reflected, her willingness to keep hitting through the ball gave her a solid platform from which to launch her challenge in the decider, where she never looked back after breaking in the second game.
“You have to believe in yourself, and I think, as I said many times, I’m turning 27 this year, which is not old, but not young as well, and I’m just more mature and things change in that age,” said Sakkari, who will face Iga Swiatek in the final after the Polish third seed saw off former champion Simona Halep 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.
“Even though I lost the second set, the way I lost it was by playing aggressive, which helped me a lot in the third set.”
For Badosa, a semi-final finish marked a commendable effort as she attempted to defend the title she won so memorably against Victoria Azarenka six months ago. The 24-year-old, seeded fifth, swept into the last four without dropping a set, scoring impressive wins over Leylah Fernandez and Veronika Kudermetova along the way, and was characteristically combative against Sakkari even if she never quite touched the heights of which she is capable. As Badosa acknowledged afterwards, it was largely down to the excellence of an opponent cast in the same powerful, obdurate mould that she came up short.
“I want to congratulate Maria, she really deserved it,” said Badosa. “I thought she played a really good match. I didn’t play my best tennis today. But credit to her, because it was her fault that maybe I didn’t play as well as I wanted.
“She served well. She was moving very well. She was playing very fast. So she didn’t let me [have] a lot of time to build the points.”
If Sakkari is to lift a second title to go with the Morocco Open crown she claimed in Rabat three years ago, she will need to chart a course past Swiatek, whose own newfound commitment to attack under new coach Tomasz Witkorowski has yielded 10 successive WTA 1000 wins. One of those came against Sakkari in the semi-finals in Doha last month, where Swiatek went on to claim the title with a crushing victory over Anett Kontaveit. The 20-year-old did not feel that result would have any bearing on the final, however, the winner of which will rise to No 2 in the world.
“Maria, matches against her are always really physical,” said the Pole. “I don’t know how I’m going to use the experiences that I had in Doha against her in these conditions, because it’s pretty different.”
Swiatek, who fought back from a set down in her first three matches in the California desert before demolishing Madison Keys 6-1, 6-0 in the quarter-finals, saved two set points in the first-set tiebreak against Halep.
In the men’s draw, Taylor Fritz saw off Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-1 to set up a meeting with Andrey Rublev, the seventh seed, who ran out a 7-5, 6-2 winner against Dimitrov.