INDIAN WELLS: Aryna Sabalenka put on a serving masterclass to crush American Coco Gauff 6-4 6-0 on Wednesday and reach the semi-finals at Indian Wells, where she will face seventh seed Maria Sakkari. The Australian Open champion never faced a break point and used her hard and accurate serve to dispatch Gauff. Sabalenka appears to have put her past struggles with double faults firmly behind her, not committing a single one against Gauff, while pounding down five aces and winning 87% of her first serves. Gauff quickly fell 2-0 down in the first set and was unable to match the Belarusian’s level despite playing well. Second seed Sabalenka kept her foot on the gas to dominate the second set despite the California crowd’s attempts to urge on the sixth-seeded Gauff. Later on Wednesday, Greek Sakkari fought back from a set down to beat 15th-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova 4-6 7-5 6-1. Kvitova got off to a flying start, breaking twice to take a 5-2 lead. Sakkari then won back-to-back games, but Kvitova managed to hold serve under pressure to take the first set. The two-time Wimbledon champion broke in the first game of the second set, but a string of double faults let her opponent back into the match. Sakkari squared the set at 3-3 before once again taking advantage of Kvitova’s shaky serve to force a decider. Sakkari, last year’s runner-up, broke twice in the third set before serving out to win the match in two hours and 15 minutes.