Indian champion Rybakina and Alcaraz return with a title and lead

Indian Wells (Reuters)

Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina beat Aryna Sabalenka 7-6, 6-4 to win the Indian Wells Tennis Championships and avenge her loss to Belarus in the Australian Open final.
Rybakina, playing her first 1,000-point Masters final, recovered from a break to win a fierce first set in which second seed Sabalenka hit 10 double faults and the 10th seeded Kazakhstani never looked back on her way to the title.
Rybakina, who beat defending champion and world number one Iga Švantek to reach the final, gave up serve when Sabalenka slammed into the baseline for a 3-2 lead.
But Rybakina quickly recovered before Sabalenka broke back on a double fault to level at 4-4 and the set headed to a tiebreak.
Despite her stumbling, Sabalenka had chances to grab the first set, but she missed three chances to resolve and also saved five chances to resolve, before hitting a forehand wide to leave control to Rybakina.
Rybakina started the second set with a break before Sabalenka’s level stabilized, but the Kazakh player finished the task quickly, in the first opportunity to decide the title when her opponent executed a serve into the net.

Carlos Alcaraz ended Daniil Medvedev’s 19-game unbeaten streak by beating him 6-3 6-2 in the final of the same tournament, to take the Spaniard the world number one from Novak Djokovic.
Alcaraz enjoyed a dream start in the first doubles final in Indian Wells, when he broke serve early, advanced 2-0 and wasted only six points on serve, on his way to clinching the first set in just 36 minutes.
The Russian player, who was aspiring to add a new title after being crowned in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai last month, was unable to stop the bleeding of points and was unable to withstand the prowess of his Spanish opponent in the rest of the match.
Alcaraz broke serve in the first half of the second set and advanced 2-0, while Medvedev wasted ten consecutive points since the first set.
Alcaraz, distinguished by his strong strikes, continued pressing from side to side on the court and broke the serve again, to advance 4-0 without trouble and ended the match after 70 minutes without facing any break point.
This is the third 1,000-point Masters title for the 19-year-old, who was the youngest player to top the world rankings last September when he won the US Open and held the top for 20 weeks before Djokovic took the top spot in January.