The second round-robin round of the Fage WTA Finals wrapped up Wednesday in Indian Wells with Group 2’s advancement scenarios starting to take shape. Mirra Andreeva secured her semifinal spot with a stunning defeat of Aryna Sabalenka. Elina Svitolina defeated Karolina Muchova in three sets, ensuring the Czech cannot advance, but not securing her own spot in the semifinals.
Svitolina took some time to get into the match, dropping the first set, but gathered her strength for a 3-6 6-2 6-2 victory. The 32-year-old Ukrainian told reporters: “I was really unhappy with the first set. I think I didn’t play the way I wish I could. I tried to really put my head down and find the small openings. And in the end, I think the third set was a better level.”
Muchova, describing the match, offered the other side of the same coin: “It was a long battle. I think I started pretty well. I felt good on the court, and then after that first set, I kind of let her get back to the match. She’s a great player, so then it was getting tougher and tougher for me, and I lost the rhythm and she gained it.”
The 30-year-old said that a medical timeout her opponent took at the end of the first set threw off her rhythm a bit. Svitolina did not specify what the evaluation was for, simply telling reporters: “Well, it’s the last tournament, so of course we had a full year of matches, tournaments, traveling. So, of course I feel a little bit here and there, but I think everyone is in the same conditions and everyone’s dealing with small injuries.”
Mirra Andreeva’s drubbing of Aryna Sabalenka sealed Muchova’s elimination from the tournament. Sabalenka had quickly earned a 4-1 lead in the first set, when the 19-year-old began to summarily pick her apart, winning the match 6-4 6-0.
The slow start into the match was the motivation that the Russian used to turn it around. She told the media after: “She hit a lot of winners. I was not happy with how I lost my serve with a double fault on a break point. So I was just feeling like that anger was building up inside of me. But then it was a good thing that I was serving because I kind of was able to turn that anger into trying to serve faster and get that anger out. After that I felt better and then I was able to play better on the return, and just like that, the things went my way.”
Despite her incredible performance, Andreeva acknowledged that she wasn’t playing the Tiger at her peak: “I do have to say that I think it was not her best day. So I feel like I cannot take all the credit for the match.”
After the 1:02 hours beatdown, the Belarusian was quick to come to the mixed zone after only taking a brief confab with her team in the gym. She seemed in good spirits, if a bit shell shocked, joking around with the media and taking her time to thoughtfully answer questions.
Asked what happened out there after a 4-1 lead, she just shook her head, saying: “She definitely played great tennis. For now, what can I say? Bravo. The good thing is that I still have a chance to qualify.” She laughed: “The bad thing, that I’ll need some time to recover after I don’t even know how many games in a row I lost. I guess that was a great practice before the next match.” The world No. 2’s plan for mental recovery is an easy one: “I have my puppy Ash. I’ll just cuddle with Ash and see if it’s gonna help me.”
After debriefing about the tournament, Sabalenka clarified previous statements about her working relationship with Max Mirnyi: “We stopped officially working together, but Max is that kind of guy who’s always there for me, always in touch, always giving his advice, or I can call him anytime. So officially we stopped working, but maybe, I don’t know, next year, in a couple years, we’re gonna get back together.”
