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 beaten in the semifinals of Indian Wells on Friday after a rain-delayed three-set match against Maria Sakkari.

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

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

Swiatek has beaten Sakkari in three of their five meetings.

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

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

Sakkari held to force the tiebreak, falling behind 6-2 before Gauff won it, 7-5.

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

She held again to go up 5-2 and then an hour and 10 minutes after her first three match points, Sakkari hit a forehand winner to set up her fourth. She closed the match on Gauff’s forehand error.

Swiatek won the 2022 tournament as part of a 37-match winning streak. She had advanced to the semi-finals when Caroline Wozniacki pulled away 6-4, 1-0 in their quarter-final. Swiatek has only lost 17 games through the semifinals.

Kostyuk hit 17 winners to Swiatek’s 14 in the match. But Swiatek was better in almost every other facet and did not face a break point.

Swiatek connected on 74% 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 match I played here,” Swiatek said in an on-court interview.

‘I didn’t really have a moment in the game today where I didn’t feel confident.’