Jessica Pegula brought Madison Keys\u2019 title defense to a close Monday at the Australian Open, earning a 6-3, 6-4 win that sets up another all-American Top 10 meeting on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz against Amanda Anisimova in the quarterfinals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Australian Open:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n Something had to give in the fourth head-to-head meeting between the two Billie Jean King Cup teammates, close friends and The Player\u2019s Box podcast co-hosts. Keys, who won her first Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne last year, brought a 10-match winning streak into the contest after three victories this year, while Pegula entered the match 3-0 in Round of 16 appearances at the tournament.<\/p>\n In 1 hour, 18 minutes, the No. 6 seed advanced, improving to 8-2 in Grand Slam fourth-round matches. The 2024 US Open finalist broke Keys\u2019 serve four times and neutralized the No. 9 seed\u2019s primary weapons, returning more than 70% of her opponent\u2019s serves and committing just 13 unforced errors against 14 winners. Keys finished with 28 unforced errors, as Pegula surged to a 6-3, 4-1 lead she never relinquished.<\/p>\n “I’ve been playing really well, seeing the ball really well, hitting the ball really well this whole tournament, and I wanted to stay true to that and lean on a couple of things that I felt like she would do,” Pegula said afterwards in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n “I felt like I came out doing it pretty well and got a couple of quick points for her early on. When I had that lead, I tried to stick with that lead as much as I could … and tried to focus on what I needed to do and the patterns to look out for.”<\/p>\n The win continued Pegula\u2019s strong track record at the Australian Open — and against fellow Americans. Since a loss to Keys in the Round of 16 at the 2023 US Open, Pegula is 28-3 against her compatriots, including a 13-1 mark over the past 52 weeks.<\/p>\n That run will be tested again in the quarterfinals, where Pegula faces No. 4 seed Anisimova. She defeated China\u2019s Wang Xinyu 7-6(4), 6-4 later Monday to reach the last eight, advancing to the quarterfinals or better at all four Grand Slams in her career. She enters the matchup 0-3 against Pegula.<\/p>\n Wang had earlier upset No. 24 seed Jelena Ostapenko and No. 13 seed Linda Noskova, but was unable to add a third seeded win against Anisimova. The first 12 games of the match went with serve before the two-time major finalist took control in the tiebreak, winning four of the final five points, including three winners.<\/p>\n Anisimova was broken only once in the 1-hour, 42-minute victory, coming in her opening service game of the second set after she had converted her fourth break point of the match. She broke again to move ahead 2-1 and was never threatened again, dropping just two points across her final four service games.<\/p>\n “I think the fact that I’ve been in the Round of 16 three time, and making that step further is pretty special,” Anisimova said. “And yeah, I love playing in Australia. So just being here an extra day, an extra match, is exciting.<\/p>\n “I’ve been honestly enjoying every second out there. I feel like I’m handling, like, the pressure and expectation that I’m trying to not really think about, but I think that just means a lot more to me that I’ve been able to really handle that well this week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessica Pegula brought Madison Keys\u2019 title defense to a close Monday at the Australian Open, earning a 6-3,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85,83],"class_list":["post-438768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438768","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=438768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}