Defending champion Madison Keys knocked out of Australian Open by fellow American Jessica Pegula

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Defending champion Madison Keys has been knocked out of the Australian Open by fellow American, and podcast pal, Jessica Pegula.

Pegula, seeded sixth, defeated the ninth-seeded Keys 6-3, 6-4 on Monday at Rod Laver Arena to reach the quarterfinals for the fourth time in Australia.

Pegula raced to a 4-1 lead in the first set and took it in 32 minutes. She then broke to open the second set and again surged to a 4-1 lead as Keys struggled on serve. The match ended when Keys hit a forehand into the net.

“I’ve been playing really well, seeing the ball, hitting the ball really well this whole tournament, and I wanted to stay true to that,” said 31-year-old Pegula. “Then just lean into a couple things that I felt like she would do, and I felt like I came out doing it pretty well

“When I had the lead I tried to stick with that as much as I could.

“Even when she got a little rhythm back, I just really tried to focus on what I needed to do and patterns to look out for.”

Pegula and Keys had played three times previously, and Keys had won the last two. But on Monday it was Pegula that had the upper hand almost throughout on the back of her serve accuracy and few unforced errors.

The 2025 champion lamented not taking advantage in the second set when she had chances. But Pegula would not let her.

“I think she (Pegula) did a really good job from the start of just being the one that was dictating and in charge,” Keys said. “I felt like if I didn’t hit a really good ball immediately, she was in charge of the points.

“I was kind of struggling to kind of get that dominance back,” Keys added. “Then I feel like especially in the second set I felt like I had some opportunities to break that I wasn’t super happy with, just kind of quick errors and not playing the best points in big moments.”

Pegula’s best performance in a major was making the U.S. Open final in 2024, where she lost to Aryna Sabalenka. She will face either No.4-seeded Amanda Anisimova or Wang Xinyu next.

In a later match Monday at Rod Laver Arena, fifth-seeded man Lorenzo Musetti faced American Taylor Fritz, who is seeded No. 9.

In night matches, second-ranked Iga Świątek was up against Australian Maddison Inglis, and the eighth-seeded man Ben Shelton faced Casper Ruud.

Novak Djokovic was due to be the feature night match at Rod Laver Arena on Monday but has had a walkover into the quarterfinals after his opponent Jakub Mensik withdrew from their scheduled fourth-round match with an abdominal injury.

___

More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis