Maria Sakkari moved into a WTA 1000 semifinal for the fifth time in her career with a 7-5, 6-4 win against No.17 seed Elena Rybakina on Thursday at the BNP Paribas Open.

Sakkari speaks: "I think I had a rough start," said Sakkari, the No.6 seed, who was down an early break in the first set. "I was a little bit nervous. But then I just had faith in my game. I knew that if I could break her back, I would get back into the match. Making a lot of balls after being 4-1 down gave me a good chance to come back into the match. 

"I see that I'm actually very calm and very confident that it's only a break. OK, if someone serves lights out, it's too good. I still have the first set, two more sets to go. That doesn't really matter. I just accepted the fact I had a bad start, just tried to change things.

"I feel like I've improved on my serve, I've improved on my groundstrokes. I don't have a huge hole in my game. There are a lot of things that I can improve, which is something good. Especially mentally, sometimes I have to just be a little bit stronger. But I'm working on that and I think I'll get where I want to get."

By the numbers: World No.6 Sakkari picked up her second Top 20 win of the season with her 1-hour and 38-minute victory over Rybakina, leveling their head-to-head at one win apiece. Rybakina had beaten Sakkari in the 2020 St. Petersburg semifinals.

Sakkari is recently unstoppable in quarterfinal matches. She has won her last nine quarterfinals in a row at tour-level, dating back to a loss to Garbiñe Muguruza in Doha over a year ago. She is 19-8 in Hologic WTA Tour quarterfinals throughout her career.

The Greek has now made the semifinals or better in her last three events. Coming into Indian Wells, she had reached the St. Petersburg final (falling to Anett Kontaveit) and the semifinals at WTA 1000 Doha (losing to eventual champion Iga Swiatek).

Sakkari will now try to turn around her record in WTA 1000 semifinals, where she is 0-4. A trip to her first WTA 1000 final could propel her to a new career-high ranking, which might potentially go as high as World No.2 depending on the remainder of the results this week.

Turning points: The Rybakina power game was the initial leader in the clash, as the 22-year-old Kazakh used a powerful forehand to break for 2-0, then slammed an ace on game point to consolidate for an early 3-0 lead. Coming into the quarterfinals, Rybakina had won 29 of her 30 service games during the tournament.

But down 4-1, Sakkari quickly got a handle on the returns and put a stop to Rybakina’s service dominance. Sakkari got back on serve at 4-3, assisted by a Rybakina double fault on break point, then used an outstanding deep return to break again for a 6-5 lead. Sakkari then served out the set with ease, having won six of the last seven games of the opener.

Rybakina had a chance to take an early lead in the second set as well, holding four break points for another 2-0 lead. But aggressive hitting by Sakkari helped the 26-year-old Greek grit out a hold, and she was rewarded for her perseverance by earning the only break of the set in the very next game.

Serving for the match at 5-4, Sakkari needed three match points before wrapping up the encounter with an error-forcing backhand and collecting another quality result at WTA 1000-level.

Next up: Sakkari will now face No.5 seed and defending champion Paula Badosa in the semifinals, after Badosa beat No.21 seed Veronika Kudermetova in straight sets in the last of the four quarterfinals. In their only previous meeting, Sakkari lost to Badosa at the 2021 Akron WTA Finals.