Resurgent Swiss Belinda Bencic toppled another top-10 player Thursday, downing fifth-ranked Karolina Pliskova to set up an Indian Wells WTA final against Angelique Kerber. Bencic, a former world number seven whose ranking slumped as injuries stalled her career, showed no sign of a let-down after her fourth-round victory over world number one and defending champion Naomi Osaka, out-lasted Czech Pliskova 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
She stretched her WTA match winning streak to 12 - six of those wins coming against top-10 players with No. 8 Kerber coming up. Germany's Kerber defeated seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams 7-6 (7/3), 6-3. "Of course I'm very confident," said Bencic, who rose to 23 in the world with her first WTA title in four years at Dubai last month and will crack the top 10 by virtue of reaching the semis here.
"I'm not putting pressure on myself even now," the 22-year-old said. "I'm just playing. The less I think on the court the better it is. "When you're confident you can just trust your instincts and you don't have to think about it at all. I'm definitely playing how I feel it, and it's going so well I'm not planning on changing that."