Announcer. Andy Taylor. The Voice of the US Open
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Madison Keys def Elena Vesnina 26 64 61
Ball-up: 11:48pm. Historically, rain has been the culprit for late nights at the US Open. Not anymore. Quality of competition dictated this year’s Night-6 Insomnia.
The Day Session ran well into Saturday’s Night Session. Karolina Pliskova overcame match point to defeat Shuai Zhang in a decider. Coco Vandeweghe took-out Agnieszka Radwanska in a three-hour thriller. Rafael Nadal struggled with Leonardo Mayer, and after dropping the first set in a tie-break, came back to defeat the Argentine in four. Roger Federer and Feliciano Lopez didn’t take the court until 9:30pm. Mercifully, Federer dispatched the Spaniard in just an hour and 46 minutes. 30-minutes later, Madison and Elena started the final 3rd-Round match of the 2017 US Open.
Madison was a mess early on
Vesnina broke twice before the first changeover. Keys erased a break in game-four, then held…but three games later, she was down a set. It was well past midnight.
In set-2, Madison earned her second break after the first sit-down, then broke again to go up 5-4. At 1:15am, Madison leveled the match, thanks to Vesnina’s 15th unforced error of the set; 30th of the match. Set-3 was all Keys. In just 17-minutes she was up 5-0, and eventually secured the win 6-1. With the victory, Madison earned the distinction of winning the latest women’s match in US Open history. It was 1:45am.
No rest for Midnight Madison
Keys will have only a day and a half to rest up for her next opponent: The hottest player on the WTA Tour, World #4 Elina Svitolina. Elina has won five titles this year alone, and cruised into the Round of 16 with a straight-sets win over American Shelby Rogers earlier today on Grandstand. The only true test she’s had at this year’s open came from Katarina Siniakova in Round-1, where Svitolina lost the second set in a tie-break.
