Indian Wells Open: Keys holds off Mertens for 14 straight wins
Indian Wells: The Australian Open champion extended her winning streak to 14 matches thanks to a topsy-turvy 6-2, 6-7 (8), 6-4 victory over a player, who has troubled her in the past, Elise Mertens.
Keys originally led by a set and 5-3 at Stadium 2 and had two match points on her own serve in the ninth game to advance to the fourth round.
They slipped away. She saw two more match points dissipate in the tiebreak. But Keys recovered to seal the win.
Keys has now won all nine three-set matches she has played in 2025. In fact, the last time she lost a deciding set was to Mertens, a 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4 heartbreaker in the fourth round of last year’s US Open, WTA reports.
Keys is bidding to reach the quarterfinals here for the second time, following her 2022 run. Her next opponent will be No. 19 seed Donna Vekic, who eliminated No. 10 seed Emma Navarro 7-6(5), 6-1 on Monday night — Vekic’s first Top 10 win since she beat Coco Gauff at last year’s Olympics.
Later at Stadium 1, Coco Gauff defeated two-time finalist Maria Sakkari 7-6 (1), 6-2 in a rematch of last year’s rain affected semifinal that Sakkari won.
Gauff took 1 hour and 35 minutes to overcome Sakkari, who is one of the strongest Indian Wells players of recent years. Sakkari is a two-time finalist at the Paribas Open, including last year, where she beat Gauff in the semifinals.
Belinda Bencic set up a meeting with Gauff, taking out 13th seed Diana Shnaider 6-4, 6-4 on her 28th birthday.
Aryna Sabalenka improved to 3-0 against Italian Lucia Bronzetti to cap play in the afternoon session at Stadium 1.
The World No. 1 hit 24 winners to just 17 unforced errors and excluding a 2-0 deficit in the second set, largely cruised in the 6-1, 6-2 result.