Cornet advances to US Open's second week as Madison Keys retires

Madison Keys’ US Open campaign came to an abrupt end on Saturday night, as the American No. 3 had to retire during her third-round match against Alize Cornet down 7-6 (4), 3-2 due to injury.

There were no breaks of serve in the set and a half the two players played, but the No. 7-seeded Keys had six break points—one with Cornet serving at 4-5, 30-40 in the opening set, and five more in the Frenchwoman’s first two service games in the second set.

But after an hour and 29 minutes on court Keys approached the net, it was all over.

Cornet is now through to the fourth round of the US Open for the first time in her career. And she now has a career Slam of fourth rounds—this was the only major she’d never been to the fourth round of.

The former No. 11 has never been further, though—she’s 0-4 in her four previous fourth rounds, going this far at the 2009 Australian Open, 2014 Wimbledon, 2015 French Open and 2017 French Open.

Standing between Cornet and her first Grand Slam quarterfinal will be Tsvetana Pironkova, who’s playing her first tournament since returning to the tour as a mom. The Bulgarian is 2-1 against Cornet.