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Dominic Thiem defeated Milos Raonic in three grueling streaks Saturday, 7-6 (3), 6-7 (3), 6-4, to reach the BNP Paribas Open final, where he will try to beat Roger Federer and raise his first title ATP Masters 1000.
Federer has qualified for the final after the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal before his semifinal, injured knee.
The first two sets of the only semi-final of the day were devoted to decisive points: Thiem and Raonic played in the 24 service matches that separated them, with only one break point (Thiem, 2-1 in the second set) .
The decisive game of the first set immediately switched to Thiem, while Raonic doubled his fault on the first point. The Austrian quickly built a 5-1 lead, finishing four points later.
In the deciding game of the second set, Thiem led 3-2, but Raonic won five straight points to take the game to a third.
The first break of the match was finally held at 2-2 of the match, for Thiem. It was only a small blow in the pattern: the two men held out, letting the 25 year-old win the victory after two hours and 31 minutes, his first win in three career games against Raonic .
Incredibly, Thiem scored only nine non-forced errors during the match, which earned him 25 winners (10 on the forehand, 9 on the backhand and 6 on the serve). Raonic had 58 winners for 35 unresolved errors for a very good report.
The Austrian is now at a victory of the biggest title of his career; his biggest titles to date are level 500 titles in Acapulco in 2016 (on hard courts) and in Rio de Janeiro in 2017 (on clay). This will be his third career final in the Masters 1000, having been runner-up at the clay court race in Madrid for the last two years, for Nadal in 2017 and 2018 for Alexander Zverev.
Nadal, who was visibly struggling with his knee in his quarter-final win over Karen Khachanov on Friday, announced his withdrawal from the match as the Thiem-Raonic semi-final began.
"As I said yesterday after the match, I felt that something was happening in the knee.This was not the time to talk about it because it was still 24 hours before the semifinal and I wanted to do my best to be competitive today, "he said. "I warmed up today and felt that my knee was not good enough to compete with the level I needed to compete in the semi-finals of this event. "
Federer, meanwhile, is now a victory away from history: no player, man or woman, has won Indian Wells six times. Federer and Novak Djokovic are tied for the record of five. The Swiss won this trophy in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2012 and 2017. He will also attempt to win his 28th career title, the Masters 1000 and his 101st career title.
Federer and Thiem are tied, 2-2. They played three times in 2016, with Federer winning their first match in Brisbane (hard) and Thiem winning consecutive games in Rome (clay) and Stuttgart (turf). Federer won his last ATP 2018 finals, hard.
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