Madison Keys clipped Petra Kvitova in a thriller 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(5) to reach the semifinals in Beijing. Keys actually led the Czech 3-0 in the third set then hung on to take the breaker in the final set.
“I think I played a pretty solid first set today, then she raised her level,” Keys said. “I just think at the end it became a couple of points here or there. I think I got my serve back on track a little bit.
“She made it really tough today. I’m just really happy that at the end I was able to get my serve back on track and get myself ahead in the tiebreaker.”
Kvitova had won her last eight matches including the Wuhan title on Sunday beating Dominika Cibulkova.
Keys will meet Johanna Konta in the semifinals on Saturday. Konta went down 4-0 to Zhang Shuai before winning 12 straight games to pace the 6-4, 6-0 victory.
“I promise you, I guess the final outcome of the score wasn’t I think a great reflection of the match itself,” Konta said. “I think we played a good quality, high-level match. Even in that third set, yeah, I thought we played some pretty great tennis. There wasn’t much in it for the scoreline to be different.
“So, yeah, no, I think overall it was pretty good.”
Elina Svitolina also advanced beating Daria Gavrilova 7-6(3), 6-1. She’ll take on Agnieszka Radwanska.
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