{"id":28865,"date":"2026-03-16T10:30:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T08:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=28865"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T08:30:28","slug":"sabalenka-sinner-crowned-indian-wells-champions-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sabalenka-sinner-crowned-indian-wells-champions-for-the-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka, Sinner crowned Indian Wells Champions for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Top seed, Aryna Sabalenka, and second seeded Italian, Jannik Sinner, have clinched their first Indian Wells tennis titles in California.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Sinner beat 11th seed, Daniil Medvedev in two tie-break sets in the men&#8217;s final, while Sabalenka defeated third seed, Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, in a three-set thriller.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Sinner was in fine form against Medvedev, who stunned top seeded Spaniard, Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Italian was eager to bag his first title of the year, while Medvedev was looking for his first Indian Wells title after losing two previous finals.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Although the Italian ultimately prevailed in two tiebreak sets, Medvedev gave it all he got.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But Sinner finished with 28 winners and 10 aces and won eight out of eight net points.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The 24-year-old became the youngest man to complete the set of hard-court trophies.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>These include the Australian and United States Open crowns, and six Masters titles.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Earlier, Sabalenka finally got the better of Rybakina in a final to clinch her first Indian Wells title.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Australian Open champion clinched the first set 6-3, before Sabalenka bounced back to take the second 6-3 as well.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The match would go all the way to a third-set decider, which also turned out to be a nail-biter.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Sabalenka survived a match point and finally clinched it 8-6 in the tie-breaker.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>After losing in two previous finals, Sabalenka finally got her hands on the trophy, her 23rd Tour title.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The focus will now shift to the Miami Open, which gets underway on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is the second and final tournament which forms part of the so-called Sunshine Double on the American hard-court swing.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15058,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-28865","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Sabalenka and Sinner, have clinched their first Indian Wells tennis titles","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28866,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28865\/revisions\/28866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=28865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}