Tennis Channel recaps early quarterfinal action from the Australian Open, where Kyle Edmund upset No. 3 seed Grigor Dimitrov and Elise Mertens knocked off No. 4 seed Elina Svitolina. USA TODAY Sports
MELBOURNE, Australian — Madison Keys' quest for a first Grand Slam title will have to remain on hold after she was trounced 6-1, 6-2 by Angelique Kerber in the Australian Open quarterfinals on Wednesday.
“I think she played really well,” Keys said. “I felt like I was trying different things but I wasn't playing very consistent. I think in the first set I played really passive, and because of that I feel like I wasn't moving as well, wasn't accelerating.
“So I wasn't very happy with how I played today, but still, I was fighting and trying to stay in the match,” she added. “Sometimes you just don't play very well out there.”
To add insult to injury, the 21st-seeded Kerber closed out the match by breaking No. 17-seeded Keys’ serve at love in the final game. While they both only had 13 winners in the 51-minute match, a nervous Keys sprayed 25 errors around the court, while Kerber only had seven for the encounter.
“I was just trying from the beginning to go out and play my game like I was doing the whole week,” Kerber said. “I was just playing my game, I wasn’t thinking of errors and winners. I was trying to stay in the moment.”
Keys’ departure drains the women’s draw of its last American singles player, which left unheralded Tennys Sandgren as the last American still competing for the Australian Open title.
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The 97th-ranked Sandgren only had a few hours to enjoy that distinction as his first career Grand Slam quarterfinal against fellow unseeded entrant Hyeon Chung ended with Chung winning in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.
Keys, who unsuccessfully attempted to find a balance between consistency and control of the match, struggles with Kerber’s style. The German is impressive in being an aggressive counter-puncher, which enables her to always get one more ball back in play, but isn’t allergic to push her cause by coming forward to the net.
Coached by Lindsay Davenport, who played for eight years before she won the first of her three Grand Slam titles at the 1998 U.S. Open, Keys revealed the two often discuss the journey to that level of stardom.
“It's very much a part of our dialogue,” Keys said. “I think she has helped me in a lot of big moments and a lot of big matches. She knows what to say in those moments to calm me down or get me going. I think I have handled a lot of the bigger situations better, and I just need to keep working on that so that I can handle them consistently better.”
Instead of coming across as upset and emotional as she’s done in the past after losing a big match, Keys handle her post-match press conference maturely and with a touch of lightness. When asked about the new attitude, she said, smiling, “I'm evolving, guys. I'm growing.
"I think I'm handling myself pretty well right now. We'll just go with that for today.”
The 16th-ranked Kerber’s aggressive performance improved her record over Keys to 7-1, and marks the second time the German has beaten her at the Australian Open. They met in the third round here in 2013 and Kerber won that encounter in straight sets as well.
Keys posted her only victory over Kerber in a three-set encounter in the 2014 Eastbourne, England, final, the traditional tune-up tournament for Wimbledon.
“To be honest, I’m not thinking about the records and head-to-heads,” Kerber said. “Every match starts from zero. It’s a new tournament. We played so many matches, so I think just that I know what to expect.”
The 20th-ranked Keys advanced to her first career Grand Slam final at the U.S. Open last year, but in a nervous performance fell to fellow American Sloane Stephens in quick two-set fashion. Her surprising run as a teenager to the 2015 Australian Open semifinals remains her second-best showing at a Grand Slam.
Kerber, who turned 30 last week, looks to be returning to the form that delivered her to her first two Grand Slam titles, here at Melbourne Park and at the U.S. Open in 2016. She also reached the Wimbledon final that year.
Last year, Kerber fell apart and didn’t seem to be enjoying playing. She went without a title during the entire 2017 season.
Kerber's already reversed her fortune this year, having won the Sydney title ahead of this Australian Open. She heads into the semifinals, where she’ll top-seeded Simona Halep, with a 10-0 record in 2018.
Halep beat sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday.
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