Lindsay Davenport and Kim Clijsters reached the women's final while Andre Agassi withdrew with a sore and swollen toe at the Pacific Life Open on Friday.
Top-ranked Davenport crushed Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-0 to snap the Russian's 12-match winning streak, while Clijsters beat Elena Dementieva 6-4, 6-2 to set up a rematch of the 2003 final, which Clijsters won.
Davenport won the Indian Wells title in 1997 and 2000, and lost the final the last two years.
Agassi pulled out of his scheduled quarterfinal against Lleyton Hewitt, the first time he was unable to take the court for a match in his storied career -- 1,092 matches. Injuries had previously forced him to pull out before tournaments began, and he has had to retire during matches. But he had never failed to at least start playing when he was scheduled.
Agassi, 34, last played on Wednesday, and said he was uncertain what the injury was, but that his left big toe began bothering him the next day.
"When I woke up [Friday], it was blown up like a balloon, twice the size. I was pretty shocked by what I saw. I can't bend it or move on it," Agassi said, explaining that the soreness was in the knuckle of the toe.
"It's just impossible for me to do anything. This is certainly not the way you want to see any tournament go, for the sake of all those involved. It's disappointing, for sure."
He said he doesn't know when he will be able to play again.
Agassi, a former No. 1 now ranked No. 9, said he had been looking forward to facing Hewitt, himself a former No. 1 who's ranked third.
"I am disappointed that Andre had to pull out today," Hewitt said. "We have had a lot of good, tough matches in the past. I have to look at the positive side as well. This just put me into another semifinals at Indian Wells."
Agassi made his ATP debut in the tournament as a 15-year-old in 1986, losing to Mats Wilander in the second round. Agassi won the title in 2001, beating Hewitt in the semifinals. Agassi also made the final in 1990 and 1995.
Davenport won the first set from third-seeded Sharapova in just 19 minutes. The Russian had only one break point, when Davenport served for the match. The American won 52 of the 75 total points. Clijsters was sidelined for most of the past year because of a left wrist injury which needed surgery in June. Her ranking fell from No. 2 to 133, and she has become the lowest ranked player in 15 years to reach a Tier 1 event final on the WTA Tour.
Clijsters broke Dementieva in the 10th game for the first set, and raced to 3-1 in the second, after which the fourth-seeded Russian took a timeout for a hip flexor injury.
Dementieva returned to court with the right thigh strapped, and broke Clijsters in the next game, but the Belgian reeled off the next three games for the match.
Dementieva committed six double faults, the last on match point.
BOUNCE BACK: Curry scored 46 points in the Warriors’ victory over the Spurs, after ‘everybody stepped up’ following Tuesday’s blowout loss to Oklahoma City Nikola Jokic scoring 50 or more points had never been enough for the Denver Nuggets to win — until now. Jokic on Wednesday night tied the highest-scoring performance in the NBA this season with 55 points, as the Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 130-116 for their sixth straight victory. The Nuggets were 0-4 in his previous 50-point outbursts. “It’s a good feeling,” the three-time NBA Most Valuable Player said. He equaled Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 55 in a double-overtime game at the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 23. Jokic has been on a roll during Denver’s winning streak. He is the
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
The tri-nation Twenty20 international series featuring hosts Pakistan, as well as Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, is to be played entirely in Rawalpindi from Tuesday next week, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said yesterday, after this week’s suicide bombing in the capital, Islamabad. The change came after at least eight Sri Lankan players asked to leave over security fears following Tuesday’s bombing that killed 12 people and wounded 27. Their country’s cricket board issued a stern directive to the team to stay put or face consequences. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said the decision to stay was taken after “close consultations” with hosts Pakistan who
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,