And then there were eight. Get your popcorn ready – it’s quarterfinal time at the 2024 BNP Paribas Open! Scroll down for a bite-sized preview of each enticing matchup…
GET TICKETSA generational battle between two former champions at different ends of their legendary careers highlights the Thursday slate and promises to be a litmus test for the true level of 33-year-old Caroline Wozniacki. The Dane has impressed in her 15 matches since returning from a three and a half year layoff to have two babies.
Since returning to the WTA Tour the former World No. 1 has won nine of 15 matches, and reached the round of 16 at the 2023 US Open. Here in the California desert she will face the biggest test of her comeback in the form of 2022 BNP Paribas Open champion Iga Swiatek. The Polish juggernaut has dropped just ten games through three rounds and has the capacity to make Thursday’s tilt an extremely physical one for Wozniacki.
Two rising talents – and two of the youngest players inside the WTA’s Top 50 – will battle for their first WTA 1000 semifinal appearance when No.28-seeded Anastasia Potapova and No.31-seeded Marta Kostyuk square off for the third time on Thursday.
It was 22-year-old Potapova who took their two previous meetings, which both came in 2023, at Miami and Birmingham.
Both 21-year-old Kostyuk and Potapova are enjoying excellent start to the 2024 season – Kostyuk is 14-5; Potapova is 10-5.
After turning 20 on Wednesday, 2023 US Open champion Coco Gauff is dead-set on starting the next decade on the front foot. During her teens, the American already became the player with the most WTA 1000 quarterfinal appearances before the age of 21, surpassing Wozniacki's 12. Now that she’s 20, she wants to continue the upward trajectory.
“Tennis goals, definitely to win some more Slams,” Gauff told reporters on Wednesday after taking out Elise Mertens, 6-0, 6-2, “and I want to medal at this Olympics or 2028. That would be cool.”
Gauff would also like to reach her first BNP Paribas Open semifinal, and to do that she’ll have to edge Yuan Yue, who has quietly been making a name for herself in the desert.
Yue topped countrywoman and Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen earlier in the event and also took out 2018 finalist Daria Kasatkina in the fourth round. And that from one set down.
Outside the Top 65 last month, nine straight wins means the 25-year-old will be inside the Top 40 when the new rankings are released.
Just three weeks ago, Emma Navarro fell to Maria Sakkari in straight sets in the round of 32 in Dubai, but the American is riding such a high at Indian Wells after upsetting No.2-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in the round of 16 on Wednesday that it’s hard to see her going down that easy this time around.
Not with a stadium packed full of American fans there to support the former NCAA women’s singles champion. Sakkari gets plenty of love from the fans in Tennis Paradise, but the 2022 runner-up will likely take a back seat to the rising 22-year-old who is enjoying her star turn at the Indian Wells Garden this year.
Navarro, ranked No.23, defeated Sakkari in their only other meeting, last year on her home turf in San Diego.
