No. 11 seed Daniil Medvedev will take on second-seeded Jannik Sinner in the men’s final at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells Sunday after Medvedev ended Carlos Alcaraz’s 16-match winning streak, beating the world’s No. 1 player, 6-3, 7-6, on Saturday.
“I gotta say, I have never seen, to be honest, Daniil playing like this,” Alcaraz said after the match. “He deserves the win completely today. He deserves completely to get through and play a final here. All I can say is just congratulations to him.”
The 30-year-old Medvedev, a former No. 1-ranked player himself, complimented Alcaraz — who won the singles title at Indian Wells in 2023 and 2024 — in an on-court interview after the match.
“Carlos is an outstanding player, it’s very tough to play against him and I lost to him many times,” Medvedev said. “And to be honest, probably I will play many more times against him and lose many more.”
Earlier Saturday, Sinner beat No. 4 seed Alexander Zverev, 6-2, 6-4. Sinner and Medvedev will each be bidding for their first title in the California desert.
“He’s back to a very, very high level,” Sinner said of Medvedev. “Very big serve, and he’s returning very well.”
Sunday’s women’s final will feature top-seeded and world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus against third-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.
“Of course I’m going to fight as much as I can, and hopefully it’s going to be a great match,” Rybakina said after beating ninth-seeded Elina Svitolina on Friday night, 7-5, 6-4. She has now won 12 straight matches against top 10 players.
Earlier Friday, Sabalenka cruised past Czechias’ Linda Noskova, 6-3, 6-4.
Rybakina defeated Sabalenka in the 2023 women’s final at Indian Wells, 7-6, 6-4.
“I’m so done losing these big finals,” Sabalenka said Friday of her recent close calls, which also included a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 loss to Rybakina in this year’s Australian Open final. “It felt like even though players were playing incredible tennis in those finals, I had so many opportunities that I didn’t use. And right now my mentality is that if I make it to the final, I’ll go out there and do everything I can — and everything I cannot — to get that trophy.”
The women’s final is scheduled for 11 a.m., with the men’s match scheduled for 2 p.m. More information can be found at bnpparibasopen.com.