By Shrivathsa Sridhar<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE, Jan 26 (Reuters) \u2013 Jessica Pegula put her close friendship with Madison Keys to one side to knock the defending champion out of the Australian Open on Tuesday, while Amanda Anisimova made it four U.S. players in the women\u2019s quarters after beating China\u2019s Wang Xinyu.<\/p>\n
Elena Rybakina is looking to build \u200don a strong finish to 2025 after lifting the WTA Finals title and she powered past Elise Mertens 6-1 6-3 as the tournament\u2019s Heat Stress Scale approached its peak.<\/p>\n
Also hitting a peak was Lorenzo Musetti, who said he played some of the best tennis of his career in beating Taylor Fritz to reach his second straight Grand Slam quarter-final.<\/p>\n
Pegula enjoyed the best conditions of the day and shrugged off an Australia Day aviation show overhead during her contest with Keys to soar into the last eight with a 6-3 \u200c6-4 win and remain on course for her first major title.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old made a blistering \u200cstart at Rod Laver Arena and only briefly let the momentum slip early in the match before cruising through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy with the way I was able to serve on some really big points, execute my strategy,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been seeing, hitting, moving, very well this whole tournament, and to be able to keep that up against such a great player as Maddie and \u200bdefending champion was going to be a lot tougher of a task today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Often labelled an underachiever on the game\u2019s biggest stages, Pegula said reaching the last eight of a major was a feat in itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m making quarter-finals of a \u200dGrand Slam, that\u2019s pretty good,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Keys said she would leave \u200bwith her head held high and promised to honour a pre-match wager by eating a cheese-smothered \u200bapple pie.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bet is a bet, so I\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
MANY BATTLES<\/p>\n
Musetti had revenge on his mind after losing to Fritz at \u200dthe ATP Finals in November, a result that ended his three-match winning run against the American.<\/p>\n
The fifth-seeded Italian played with authority and artistry in a 6-2 7-5 6-4 victory to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in Melbourne, where he will meet 10-times champion Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I feel very proud. I know Taylor very well, we\u2019ve played many matches, many battles. And last time in Turin he was the winner,\u201d Musetti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here with a different mentality \u200dand I think I made one of my best performances \u2026 I\u2019m very happy. I improved a lot on serve and especially being a little bit more aggressive with the forehand and trying to use my variations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serb Djokovic had already advanced to \u200dthe last eight after his fourth-round opponent \u200dJakub Mensik withdrew on Sunday with an abdominal injury.<\/p>\n
Fritz said later he had aggravated knee \u200band oblique issues during his last match against Stan Wawrinka.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I was feeling it \u200bfrom the get-go,\u201d \u2060he added.<\/p>\n
Anisimova also benefited from a dangerous opponent\u2019s fitness issues, seeing off China\u2019s \u200cWang 7-6(4) 6-4 and setting up a quarter-final against Pegula. Her U.S. compatriots Iva Jovic and Coco Gauff booked their spots in the last eight on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Wang received medical attention off-court after being broken twice in the second set and returned with strapping on her thigh, but she was unable to stick with Wimbledon and U.S. Open finalist Anisimova.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s champion Jannik Sinner was in action against Luciano Darderi late in the afternoon. Ben Shelton meets Casper Ruud later and Iga Swiatek takes on Maddison Inglis.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in \u2060Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Shrivathsa Sridhar MELBOURNE, Jan 26 (Reuters) \u2013 Jessica Pegula put her close friendship with Madison Keys to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-434193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}