Madison Keys advances to semi-finals over Elena Rybakina

Madison Keys stopped Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in Cincinnati, advancing to the Western & Southern Open semi-finals 6-2 6-4.

Keys flashed her potential earlier this week as the American usually has these types of streaky weeks. Sometimes she's great, other times she's rather poor but she's in the semi-final as of now. The win over Swiatek injected her even more confidence and it was on display early. A two to zero lead, then a 4-0 lead and ultimately a 6-2 opening set victory.

Both of them prefer to hit the ball hard but in the opening set, it was Keys who was more consistent with it. She also hit her serve way better than Rybakina did and that's another reason why she was up early. By the time Rybakina found any kind of rhythm the damage was already done.

In the 2nd set, Rybakina served even worse but was able to keep herself in play with some bold shotmaking. Unfortunately, the early 2-0 lead and the break were not sustainable as she would start missing soon after. Keys continue applying more and more pressure and eventually got the 5-2 lead but Rybakina shortly pulled one break back. Keys advanced 6-4 in the 2nd one.

Hitting your first serve only 38 % of the time is just not something you can overcome on these fast courts, especially if you're generally very vulnerable on your 2nd serve like Rybakina is.