Madison Keys, the 51st in the ranking at 26 years old and who in 2016 became the seventh racket on the women’s circuit, has left the women’s singles draw at the Australian Open without Spanish representation.
Paula Badosa, the eighth favorite in the draw and the number one of the women’s ‘Armada’ on the WTA charts after Garbie Muguruza’s loss to Alize Cornet, I yielded with a score of 6-3 and 6-1, in 69 minutes.
Under the Melbourne sun, the Catalan opened the Sunday session at the Rod Laver Arena. The two protagonists had never seen each other’s faces before..
Keys was the first to break her opponent’s serve in the second game and he was always threatening from the rest. Paula, the opposite. A single ‘break’ ball could not be made in the initial round.
Jorge García’s pupil was always in tow and lost his serve at the start of the second set. Badosa returned to the scene equaling a game.
The Spanish had put herself in pediment mode against an adversary who achieved winners from both sides. Nothing I tried worked for the Sydney champion, who was ending an eight-match winning streak.
Keys continues chaining wins and there are already nine. Not in vain, he came to lift the trophy in Adelaide.
I broke serve for the third time in the third game. He put a lot of pressure on the rest and his opponent noticed that with a carousel of double faults (10). The sentence came with the fourth ‘break’, third in a row, of the tennis player from Rock Island. A fifth break will come. Badosa, who usually takes the initiative in the matches, was left with 10 winners for the 26 of his executioner.
Return of the keys
The American, semifinalist of the first major in the 2015 edition, is one victory away from equaling that result. Wait in the penultimate round for the winner of the match between Barbora Krejcikova (4) and Victoria Azarenka (24). The last time that Keys had been planted among the best eight of a ‘major’ was three years ago in the land of Roland Garros.
Badosa leaves Melbourne virtually fifth in the WTA, looking forward to what Maria Sakkari and Iga Swiatek do at the Australian Open.
His return to competition is dated from February 14 to 19 at the WTA 500 in Dubai. Next will come the WTA 1,000 in Doha before the tournaments of the same category in Indian Wells and Miami.
The Australian Open continues to resist Spanish women’s tennis.
