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Flavia Pennetta, who won the biggest WTA title of her career at the BNP Paribas Open last year, pulled off the upset of this year's tournament under the lights on Tuesday night, battling back from a set down to take out Maria Sharapova in an electric three-setter.

Watch highlights, interviews and more video from Indian Wells right here on wtatennis.com!

The No.2-seeded Sharapova looked like she might take the match in straight sets after winning the first set, 6-3, and getting an 0-30 opening on Pennetta's service game at 2-all in the second set.

But the No.15-seeded Pennetta reeled off four straight points from there to hold serve and eventually won 10 of the next 13 games to pull off the biggest surprise of the fortnight, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

"I'm really happy about this win," Pennetta said. "In the second set I tried to be more aggressive. My serve helped me a lot, and I was also really aggressive on the return, so she was starting to have some problems on her serve. It was a really good match. I was really fighting until the last point."

"I got off to a good start tonight. I definitely had some chances in the beginning of the second set. A few 0-40, 0-30 games," Sharapova said. "Just didn't commit enough though. Didn't take those chances. She gained a little bit of confidence after that. She started feeling a little bit of a breath of fresh air, starting going a little bit more for her serve, for the lines. She just got in a really good rhythm.

"Everything I gave her she hit back solid with pace. She mixed it up. She saw the ball better."

Pennetta said she got very emotional after the first set - she explained why in her presser.

"Well, I think it's really important for me to do well here at Indian Wells, and also playing tonight on center court against Maria, there were a lot of expectations," she said. "I think I handled it pretty well. For me it was important to just keep calm and try to play. And in the end I just played really well."

Pennetta has now beaten Sharapova three times in a row - all five of the pair's career meetings have gone to three sets, with Sharapova winning the first two and Pennetta now winning the last three.

And the Italian's win over the No.2-ranked Sharapova was her fifth career win over a Top 2 player, her first four coming at Zürich in 2008 (No.1 Jelena Jankovic), Sydney in 2011 (No.2 Vera Zvonareva), Beijing in 2011 (No.1 Caroline Wozniacki) and right here at Indian Wells a year ago (No.2 Li Na).

Next up for Pennetta is No.24 seed Sabine Lisicki, who beat No.25 seed and WTA Rising Star Caroline Garcia, 6-4, 6-4. Lisicki had never won a match at Indian Wells before this year - now, three in a row.

Perhaps surprisingly, Pennetta and Lisicki will be playing each other for the first time.

The first Premier Mandatory final of 2015 is here, and there's a lot on the line for the Romanian No.1 and a former World No.1 - here are 10 Things To Know about the BNP Paribas Open final...

(3) Simona Halep (ROU #3) vs (18) Jelena Jankovic (SRB #21)
Head-To-Head: Halep leads Jankovic, 3-1

1) Halep leads the head-to-head, 3-1, but that could easily have been 3-1 for Jankovic.
These two WTA stars have gone to three sets in all four of their previous meetings, and two of them could easily have gone the other way - Jankovic had match points in two of Halep's three wins:

2010 US Open 1r - Jankovic d. Halep, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5
2012 Brussels 1r - Halep d. Jankovic, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(3) (Jankovic held 3mp in third set)
2013 Rome QFs - Halep d. Jankovic, 4-6, 6-0, 7-5 (Jankovic held 2mp in third set)
2014 Australian Open 4r - Halep d. Jankovic, 6-4, 2-6, 6-0

2) Halep is going for the biggest title of her career.
Right now, Halep's biggest WTA titles are at the Premier 5 level - Doha last year and Dubai earlier this year. Winning Indian Wells would give her the first Premier Mandatory-level title of her career.

3) Jankovic is going for the equal-biggest title of her career.
The biggest of Jankovic's 13 WTA titles came at the Premier Mandatory level - she won right here at Indian Wells in 2010. If she wins again here, it would be the equal-biggest title of her career.

4) Halep will be the frontrunner for Singapore if she wins the title.
By reaching the final here, Halep has overtaken Maria Sharapova for No.2 on the Road To Singapore leaderboard. If she wins the title, she will pass Serena Williams for No.1 on the leaderboard.

5) Singapore could be in sight for Jankovic too.
If Jankovic wins this title, she could move into the Top 8 on the Road To Singapore leaderboard. She's no stranger to the WTA Finals - she's played it five times, reaching the semifinals three times.

6) Jankovic has completely revived her year - and career - this fortnight.
Ranked as high as No.6 less than a year ago, a series of injuries has seen Jankovic fall to No.21 as of this fortnight - but this run will send her right back into the Top 20 on the new WTA Rankings.

7) It hasn't been that long since Jankovic's last win over a Top 3 player...
Despite her injury struggles the last 12 months, you don't have to go too far back to find Jankovic's last win over a Top 3 player - she beat then-World No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska at Rome last May.

Halep could be the third player to reach 20 match wins this year.
If Halep beats Jankovic, it will be her 20th WTA-level match win of the year. Only two other players have reached 20 this year - WTA Rising Star Karolina Pliskova (20) and Timea Bacsinszky (21).

9) Jankovic has had to come back from behind in almost every match here.
Jankovic had to dig out her first three matches here, all against WTA Rising Stars - a set down to Lauren Davis, 3-1 down in the third set to Madison Keys, and then again 3-1 down in the third set to Belinda Bencic. She was also down a set and a break against Sabine Lisicki in the semifinals.

10) Find out where you can watch the final live on WTA TV developed by Xerox!

She seemed down and out time and time again in the match, but Simona Halep hung in there and just kept coming back, eventually battling past Jelena Jankovic in a thriller for the biggest WTA title of her career and the No.1 spot on the Road To Singapore leaderboard.

Watch highlights, interviews and more video from Indian Wells right here on wtatennis.com!

Things didn't look pretty for Halep early on - while Jankovic came out firing, holding serve handily and ripping her trademark down-the-lines to perfection, the Romanian seemed off, putting together a -10 differential of winners to unforced errors in the opening set (8 winners to 18 unforced errors).

Jankovic had all kinds of leads in the the second set, too, going up 3-1 and, after letting that break go, breaking again for 4-3 and 5-4, even serving for the match in that game. But Halep wouldn't let go of the match, squeaking out some very close games to take that marathon 63-minute second set, 7-5.

There was nothing routine about the third set either, as the players traded breaks three times back and forth, but again it was the No.3-seeded Halep who came through in crunch time, breaking the No.18-seeded Jankovic one last time in the final game of the match to finally close it out, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.

The key for Halep might have been tightening the screws on her unforced errors - the two players had the same amount of winners in the second and third sets, but Halep had 17 fewer errors (29 to 46).

The World No.3 gave the former World No.1 some major props in her speech at the trophy ceremony.

"First of all I want to congratulate Jelena - you were amazing," Halep said. "Well done for a great two weeks here. You did a great job, and it was an amazing final. I'm really happy I could win today.

"This is my biggest title and I will never forget it."

Before these two weeks, Halep's biggest WTA titles came at the Premier 5 level - Doha last year and Dubai earlier this year. And by capturing her first Premier Mandatory-level title in Indian Wells, Halep jumps past Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams to take the No.1 spot on the Road To Singapore leaderboard, the year-long journey to the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

Though she didn't come away with the title, these last two weeks have revived Jankovic's career. A series of injuries had seen her go from No.6 to No.21 over the last 12 months - but she came alive in Indian Wells, the site of her own biggest career title in 2010, and she'll now return to the Top 20.

"I was limping three days before the tournament started," Jankovic said, referring to a hip injury she suffered recently in Doha. "I was actually in doubt if I could even play. When I came to these courts, on the first day I hadn't hit a ball for 10 days. I was hitting, but I was standing. I was not moving.

"But I was hitting the ball so great without any practice. I had a good feeling. I felt so great. I was just so happy to be out there again. But I didn't think I would make the finals after not preparing."