Sakkari – Tsitsipas: The times of their games on Thursday against Sambalenka and Struff

Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas will take on the Greek tennis player on Thursday to reach the final of the tournament for the first time in her career, while this will mark the second time this year that she will attempt to compete in a WTA 1000 Draw final Indian Wells.

Just like then, she now meets world No. 2 Arina Sabalenka in Madrid in a match scheduled for March 20 17:00 (Novasport6). The two semi-finalists met eight times, with the Belarusian leading 5-3 victories while emerging victorious on both occasions when she faced Saqqara in the semi-final stage (Abu Dhabi 2021, Indian Wells 2023).

However, it’s worth noting that this will be the first time the two have met on clay, as all 8 of their encounters have been on hard courts. For Sakkari, this will be the 28th semifinal of her career with the Greek tennis player as she has a record of 7-21.

Immediately afterwards (approx 21:00, Cosmote Sport 6) Stefanos Tsitsipas will enter Central Court, where he will battle German and lucky loser Jan Leonard Struff for qualification to the semifinals of the event.

The Greek tennis player has a slight lead in a straight 3-2 while defeating the German both times when he met him in the quarterfinals, both in Genoa 2017 and in Dubai 2020.

Tsitsipas and Struff will already know their opponent in the semifinals when the program starts at Manolo Santana 14:00 GMT the amazing Zhizhen Zhang who will take on Aslan Karachev with the Chinese leading the head-to-head after beating Karachev in the 2022 Astana tournament.

Thursday’s program ends (22:00 GMT) with the women’s second semi-final, where Veronika Kudermetova awaits her opponent, who will emerge from Wednesday night’s game with Iga Sfiodek and Petra Martic.

SOURCE: Tennis24