Coco Gauff is dumped OUT of Indian Wells in the semi-finals – despite saving three match points – as American is beaten by Maria Sakkari after lengthy rain delays in California

Coco Gauff was defeated in the Indian Wells semi-finals on Friday after a rain-delayed three-set battle against Maria Sakkari.

Sakkari outlasted the American 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 after losing three match points in the second inning to reach the BNP Paribas Open final.

She will now play top-ranked Iga Swiatek in Sunday’s final after beating Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-1 to improve to 19-2 this year, leading the WTA Tour with her wins .

Swiatek has defeated Sakkari in three of their five meetings.

There were delays of 20 minutes and two hours during the semi-final between third-seeded Gauff and ninth-seeded Sakkari.

Sakkari ultimately outlasted the American 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 after three match points

Sakkari broke Gauff twice to take a 5-2 lead in the second set. But Gauff won four games in a row and fought off three match points in the 10th game to take a 6–5 lead.

Sakkari held on to force the tiebreak, where she fell behind 6-2 before Gauff won 7-5.

There were break points in each of the first six games of the third. After dropping serve to open the set, Sakkari broke Gauff twice and then held a 4-1 lead.

She held on again to go 5-2 ahead and an hour and 10 minutes after her first three match points, Sakkari hit a forehand winner to earn her fourth. She closed out the match after a forehand error by Gauff.

There were delays of 20 minutes and two hours during the match due to heavy rain

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Swiatek won the 2022 tournament as part of a 37-match winning streak. She was through to the semi-finals when Caroline Wozniacki retired in the quarter-finals trailing 6-4 and 1-0. Swiatek has lost only 17 games in the semi-finals.

Kostyuk hit 17 winners to 14 for Swiatek in the match. But Swiatek was better in almost every other area and didn’t face a break point.

Swiatek connected on 74 percent of her first serves, won 83 percent of her first serve points and 50 percent of her second serve points on a cool and windy evening in the Southern California desert.

“It was the cleanest game I played here,” Swiatek said in an on-field interview.

‘I didn’t really have a single moment in the match today where I wasn’t confident.’