Madison Keys matched her best Grand Slam performance in seven-plus years, as the 19th-seeded U.S. player overtook 28th-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Wednesday in Melbourne.
Keys’ semifinal opponent will be No. 2 Iga Swiatek of Poland, who cruised past eighth-seeded Emma Navarro of the United States 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday.
Keys is one win shy of getting to her second career major final. She lost the 2017 U.S. Open championship match to another U.S. player, Sloane Stephens. Keys also was a semifinalist at the Australian Open in 2017 and 2022.
“I’m really, really proud of myself to be in another semifinal here and kind of hoping and looking forward to see if I can make it one step further,” she said.
The latest victory was Keys’ 12th in 13 matches this year. Keys lost to Denmark’s Clara Tauson in the quarterfinals at Auckland, New Zealand, to start the season, then won the title at Adelaide, Australia, beating top-seeded Jessica Pegula of the United States in the final.
The match against Svitolina featured just one service break in each set. Svitolina got the break for a 5-3 lead to start the match, then served out the set in the next game.
Keys saved a break point in the first game of the second set, then never faced another the rest of the way. She got the break for 4-2 in the middle set and for 3-2 in the third set.
“I think in the second set I really just started trying to get to the net a lot more and really kind of take advantage of some of the short balls that I was getting,” Keys said. “Just being able to do that, I feel like I kind of ran with the momentum after that.”
Swiatek lost just three games in her quarterfinal win, yet it was her longest of five matches thus far in the event in terms of time — 89 minutes. She has yet to lose a set, and since beating the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 6-4 in the first round, she hasn’t lost more than two games in any set.
Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam champion, is seeking her first Australian Open title. She reached the semifinals in Melbourne just once previously, in 2022.
Against Navarro, Swiatek won 82 percent of her first-serve points (23 of 28) and saved the lone break point she faced.
Swiatek, who owns a 4-1 career record against Keys, said of the semifinal matchup, “Madison is a great player and really experienced, so you never know. The match that I lost, she kind of killed me, so I think it can be tricky.”
The other women’s singles semifinal will feature No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and No. 11 Paula Badosa of Spain.
–Field Level Media
