Harriet Dart shows Elina Svitolina the exit in three set upset at Indian Wells.

Harriet Dart hits the forehand during her match with Elina Svitolina at the BNP Paribas Open. 

Elina Svitolina put a lot of heart into her opening match but came out on the wrong side of the court at the BNP Paribas Open Friday night. The Ukrainian, who fought for more than herself was pitted against a surging Harriet Dart, who threw all her efforts into three sets and won 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 on Stadium Four at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. It was Svitolina’s first upset to a top 100 player and for Dart, her first win against a top 20 player while debuting in a WTA 1000 event. 

The two met for the first time with Svitolina making her ninth appearance in tennis paradise. The Ukrainian had a lot of personal battles with her home country under attack and fighting to focus on the court. In her run at Monterrey, the defending champion battled in each of her matches but came up short in the third one to drop out. With her enjoyment of Indian Wells, the 12^th seed looked to get dug in and score another top 100 win to start the tournament. 

She opened the match with a break of the Brit, who made her Indian Wells debut. The 27-year-old fell behind on serve and went to deuce where after six breaks, Dart’s efforts paid off to break back. Svitolina added a third straight break to the score but wanted to get the offense in check and control the pace. It was an easy win on serve in the fourth but battling Dart on serve remained a huge task. A chance to break was in place but the Brit saved it to force deuce. She failed to capture an AD point, giving Svitolina the win on a backhanded error into the net. 

Dart pulled off a break back due to her push that was almost a shutout against Svitolina. The Ukrainian brushed it off and captured a double break that put her up 5-2, with the chance to serve out the set. Though she faced her second task against the young British player, Svitolina battled when Dart forced deuce and went three breaks. Despite saving two set points, the Ukrainian produced a third and closed the first to her name after 43 minutes. 

Dart’s three double faults stuck out like a sore thumb, but her fight in games against the world number 18 was impressive enough to fight on. She improved the stats of her service games in the first and came out holding serve in the first. Svitolina followed suit and then went for a break in the third. Dart managed to break back in the fourth, keeping the score even. She backed it up to regain the lead in the fifth and pulled off a double on Svitolina, working through nine points in the game. 

Though she suffered another break to the 27-year-old in the seventh, she achieved the triple break to serve for the set. Finding some ease behind her first serve, the British star capped the second set with two set points to force the Ukrainian into a long match that would take the lights of the court. 

Dart jumped out to a 3-0 run, investing a lot of time in the second and third. With the double break in hand against the 12^th seed, Dart went for another but faced heavy opposition. The two played 13 points and four breaks of deuce in the fourth that handed Svitolina a much-needed win to get her back into it. The 27-year-old dug in on serve, yet still fought tooth and nail with the 25-year-old. Two breaks were in the books before Svitolina controlled the AD point twice and clinched her second win. 

Dart was done giving the Ukrainian room to maneuver and responded in the sixth to take a 4-2 lead. Svitolina managed to get the job done by denying Dart the coveted game point that would have put her closer to the match. Instead, the lead for the Brit was down to one with her serving the eighth. 

She scored a serve to love that put the pressure on Svitolina to stay alive in the match. Errors set up a tradeoff of the first four points until a long return behind the baseline brought up the game point. Her next shot landed into the tram lines that forced deuce for Dart. She handled some tricks from the Ukrainian to lob over a match point response. The 25-year-old qualifier sealed the upset on a final return into the net from Svitolina to end a 2 hour and 17-minute thriller.