World No.9 Madison Keys overcame some issues on serve to launch her Adelaide International title defence by ousting young qualifier Tereza Valentova 6-4 6-1 on Day 3 at The Drive.<\/p>\n
Keys was broken twice in her first three service games on Centre Court and sprayed seven double faults in the opening set.<\/p>\n
But once she problem-solved her faulty ball toss, the American couldn’t have been more imperious in her dismissal of the 18-year-old Czech, marching into a quarterfinal meeting with rising Canadian Victoria Mboko.<\/p>\n
“I think overall it was a pretty good match today,” Keys said.”Definitely got a little bit better in the second set, and kind of was able to run away with it.<\/p>\n
“But she’s (Valentova) a very talented young player, and I’m sure that we’ll see much more of her.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Keys memorably followed her success in Adelaide 12 months ago by claiming her maiden Grand Slam a fortnight later in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
The second seed was given a warm reception from the South Australian fans.<\/p>\n
“I have always really enjoyed playing here,” Keys said. “It’s a great court on top of everything. It just feels like really great conditions. And then obviously having all of those really great memories is kind of icing on the cake.”<\/p>\n
Aussie Vukic moves on<\/p>\n
Aleksandar Vukic capped a memorable 24 hours by following his stunning upset of seventh seed Stefanos Tsitsipas with a 6-2 7-6(5) win over fellow qualifier Andrea Vavassori.<\/p>\n
Vukic’s first serve was virtually untouchable early, before the Australian was forced to ward off a stiffer challenge from his crafty Italian opponent in the second set.<\/p>\n
Vukic set up match point with back-to-back aces before punching his ticket into a quarterfinal date with second seed Tommy Paul when Vavassori double-faulted.<\/p>\n
“Faced a different type of opponent today,” Vukic said. “He’s very tricky, plays mostly in the doubles, but is a very, very good singles player.<\/p>\n
“He beat some very good players leading up to this. I knew it was going to be very tricky.”<\/p>\n
Quarterfinals set for Cristian and Paul \u00a0<\/p>\n
Daria Kasatkina racked up nine double faults and failed to hold her serve once as she\u00a0was dismissed 6-4 6-0 by Romanian qualifier Jaqueline Cristian in the opening fixture on Centre Court.<\/p>\n
Cristian’s quarterfinal opponent will be Gold Coast wildcard Kimberly Birrell, who advanced when her scheduled second-round opponent Marketa Vondrousova withdrew with a left shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
Paul secured his first tour victory since last year’s US Open after downing good friend Reilly Opelka 6-4, 6-4 on Showcourt 1.<\/p>\n
Forced to shut his 2025 season down after Flushing Meadows with a left foot issue, Paul looked fit and refreshed against his fellow American.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think he (Opelka) served his best today, but I did a great job of capitalising on his second-serve points,” Paul said. “I thought from the ground, I played a pretty error-free match. I took care of my serve and that was the game plan coming in.<\/p>\n
“The foot’s all good, the body’s all good, I’m happy with how my body is and I’m excited to get the year really going.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World No.9 Madison Keys overcame some issues on serve to launch her Adelaide International title defence by ousting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[218154,64,63,68138,72820,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-412819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-adelaide-internatonal-2022","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-madison-keys","12":"tag-news-article","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}