Madison Keys rebounded from a difficult start to defeat Daria Kasatkina in San Jose today, 6-4, 6-3, and move through to the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 event.
It was also a big milestone for Keys: the 250th WTA win of her career.
But for a while, it looked like that milestone would have to wait for another day.
Keys had won seven of the pair’s eight previous meetings, but Kasatkina’s only win against the American did come in their last meeting, at one of the lead-up events to the Australian Open in Melbourne this year—and the Russian came racing out of the blocks in this one, too, building a 4-0 lead in just 22 minutes.
But Keys caught fire from there, not only winning the next seven games in a row to build a 6-4, 1-0 lead, but eventually 10 of the next 11 games to go up 6-4, 4-1.
The No. 11-ranked Kasatkina got herself back on serve in the second set, holding serve to close the gap to 4-2 then breaking to make it 4-3, but Keys—who’s currently No. 18 on the WTA rankings—broke right back for 5-3 before swiftly serving it out.
Keys is now through to the quarterfinals or better at a WTA event for the fifth time this year. The first four times came on hard courts, too—she won a WTA 250 in Adelaide the week before the Australian Open, then reached the semifinals of the Australian Open, and also reached the quarterfinals of Indian Wells and the semifinals in Cincinnati.
