Svitolina rallies to top Muchova, boost WTA Finals bid

Elina Svitolina roared back from a set down to beat Karolina Muchova 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday to boost her bid to advance to the WTA Finals semi-finals at Indian Wells.

Ukrainian veteran Svitolina lifted the WTA Finals trophy in 2018 but hadn’t been back to the elite season-ending event since 2019.

She got off to a rocky start against Muchova, who broke Svitolina three times in the opening set.

Trailing 2-1 on serve in the second Svitolina found her range, winning five straight games to force a third set.

“I was not happy with the first set,” Svitolina said. “I didn’t play as well. I just made some adjustments, tactical adjustments.

“I tried just to go more for my shots because I played kind of with her game,” she added. “She has an amazing variety of the shots with the slice, with the serve and volley. I had to stay away from that and try to find shorter balls earlier in the rally.

“I think it helped me also to be more aggressive, because I was too passive in the first set,” Svitolina said.

Svitolina said she was able to channel her “angriness” that had been brewing since her straight sets loss to Mirra Andreeva in her round-robin opener.

She handed Muchova a second defeat in round-robin play and improved to 1-1 and will have a chance to compete for a semi-final berth when she takes on world No 2 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in their final group match on Friday.

Sabalenka took on third-seeded Russian Mirra Andreeva in Wednesday’s other group match.