In the first all-American fourth round match at the Australian Open in six years, Jessica Pegula ended Madison Keys’ title defense on Monday with a 6-3, 6-4 win.

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Something had to give in the fourth head-to-head meeting between the two Billie Jean King Cup teammates, good friends, and The Player’s Box podcast co-hosts. Keys, who won a long-awaited first Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne last year, improved her unbeaten streak to 10 in a row with three wins this year, while Pegula entered the match 3-0 in Round of 16 matches at the tournament. 

In 1 hour and 18 minutes, the No. 6 seed advanced, and improved to 8-2 in Grand Slam fourth-round matches overall. The 2024 US Open finalist did it by breaking Keys’ serve four times, and blunting the No. 9 seed’s primary weapons. She returned more than 70% of Keys’ serves in the match, and made just 13 unforced errors against 14 winners. That, coupled with 28 unforced errors by Keys, helped Pegula sprint out to a 6-3, 4-1 lead that she never relinquished.

“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.

“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. 

“In the first set, she played a couple of really good games, and I had to focus on where I was serving, be smart, take some risk on a couple of second serves, change up the pace as much as I could. … I had to really trust that I was able to change speeds and hit my spots on my serves. In the second set, I couldn’t see anything into the sun, and I was like, ‘Whatever.’ I got broken [at 4-1] … so I tried not to get too upset at that one.”

The win not only continued Pegula’s career success at the Australian Open, but also 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 — and that record is 13-1 in the last 52 weeks.

There is the potential for that run to continue. In the last eight, Pegula will face No. 4 seed Amanda Anisimova, who defeated China’s Wang Xinyu later on Monday in Melbourne 7-6(4), 6-4. Anisimova has now reached the quarterfinals or better at all four Grand Slams in her career, but will take an 0-3 record into her match against Pegula.

Wang had previously upset both No. 24 seed Jelena Ostapenko and No. 13 seed Linda Noskova earlier in the tournament, but couldn’t make it a hat trick of seeded wins against a determined Anisimova. The first 12 games of the match went with serve before the two-time major finalist found a spark in the tiebreak to win four of the last five points — hitting three winners in that span. 

Anisimova was broken just once in the 1 hour and 42-minute victory, and it came in her first service game of the second set after she herself broke Wang on her fourth break point chance. However, she broke again to lead 2-1, and Wang never again pulled level. She lost just two points in her final four service games.