After the bottom half of the quarterfinal draw at Roland Garros was defined on Sunday, eighth seed Ashleigh Barty and 14th seed Madison Keys opened fourth-round action in the top half by handling the challenge of Sofia Kenin and Katerina Siniakova respectively.
After dropping her first set of the tournament to unseeded American world No.35 Sofia Kenin, the third-round conqueror of Serena Williams, Barty showed grit and poise on Court Philippe Chatrier to finish the see-saw match with a bagel and reach her second straight Grand Slam quarterfinal, first at the French Open, 6-3 3-6 6-0. Eleven aces to Kenin’s one aided Barty in the process.
A smooth 6-2 6-4 victory over Katerina Siniakova is taking last year’s Roland Garros semifinalist Keys back into the quarters. Czech world No.42 Siniakova entered today’s encounter on Court Suzanne Lengen on an eight-match winning streak against American players, but performance that had led her to an upset of world No.1 Naomi Osaka in the previous round wasn’t there.
Barty and Keys are tied at 1-1 in head-to-head stats, with the Australian winning their this year’s meeting in the Fed Cup, while Keys was victorious in their only clash on clay, in the first round of the 2017 French Open.
Quarterfinal pairs in the bottom half of the draw are Petra Martic [31] vs. Marketa Vondrousova and Sloane Stephens [7] vs. Johanna Konta [26].
I love me some Ash Barty, but I’d like to see Keys finally win a major. “Go, Maddie! You can do it!”