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Photo Credit: Arturo Velazquez/Tennis Canada
In an all-American Round of 16 matchup on Thursday, American Madison Keys battled past fellow American Venus Williams, hanging on to win 6-1, 6-7(2), 6-3 to reach the Rogers Cup quarterfinals in Montreal.
Keys took advantage of a weak serve from Venus in the opening set, needing just 20 minutes to win six of the seven games to take the opener. But Venus didn’t falter in the second set even after falling behind a break, regrouping to force a tiebreaker, eventually winning seven of the nine points to force a deciding third set.
In the third set, however, Keys cleaned up her game. She won 20 of the 28 total points on her serve, and converted the only break point of the frame to secure the victory.
She will take on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the final eight. The 16th seeded Russian hung on to defeat fourth-seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-1 to advance on Thursday.
“It’s going to be a tough match. She’s always tricky because she definitely fights till the end and she’s going to hit a lot of winners,” Keys said of Pavlyuchenkova. “I think it will be similar to today, you know, kind of deciding when to just get the ball back in a good, neutral spot, or when to kind of pull the trigger and be a little bit more aggressive.”
Australian Open champion and second-seed Angelique Kerber came back from a bad first set to upend 17th seed Elina Svitolina 1-6, 7-6(2), 6-4.
“I think the match was a little bit crazy,” said Kerber. “Actually, the whole match was a lot of ups and downs.”
Kerber will take on Russian Daria Kasatkina in the quarterfinals. Kasatkina dismissed seventh-seed Roberta Vinci 7-5, 6-3.
Simona Halep tamed big-serving Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-3 to reach the final eight. The fifth-seeded Romanian broke twice in each set to move through in one hour and seven minutes. She will take on ninth-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who defeated Petra Kvitova 7-6(2), 6-3 on Thursday.
The other Montreal quarterfinal will see 15th seed Johanna Konta take on Kristina Kucova of Slovakia. Konta got past Varvara Lepchenko 6-3, 6-3, while Kucova came back from a set down to beat home favorite Eugenie Bouchard 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.
