Serena Williams had a rather tricky task against the upcoming Madison Keys. The world no.1 had a terrible start to immediately drop her serve in the very first game. Then Serena broke back Madison in the 6th game (3-3) to win the opening set at the tiebreak at 5.
Madison was quite flat in the second set to be broken twice. The young American gave a huge fight only when she was 5-1 down (a bit late) to save 8 match points! Finally Serena managed to convert the 9th to wrap up the match with the result of 7-6 (5) 6-2.
Match Stats
The match was much more even than suggested by the score-line with Serena winning 78 points vs. Madison’s 68. Keys’ service wasn’t that “far” from Serena’s to blast 12 aces (13 for Serena). The big difference between these two was on points won behind the second serve (68% for Serena, 47% for Madison). Match Stats
Serena: Madison will be world no.1
Williams commented “I was a little frustrated at the end – I had so many match points and just couldn’t close it out, and that doesn’t usually happen. But in retrospect, she was playing very well. She served so well. I’m a really big fan of hers. She’s so awesome, she’s so positive, just a great player.
It was an honour for me to play someone who will be ranked No.1 in the future.”
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Thank you for all the messages and thank you to everyone cheering me on. Too good from @serenawilliams today. Can’t wait to be back 😊😘
— Madison Keys (@Madison_Keys) January 29, 2015
Next vs. Sharapova
Serena will play Maria Sharapova in the final. Head to head is 16-2 for Serena that has won the last 15 matches against the Russian. Last time that Maria defeated Serena was in 2004 (!!!) and the Russian has won only 1 set in the last 11 encounters.
