Coming into this match, Kerber was a huge favorite. Despite not being on her best form in Indian Wells, she had good momentum coming into this match and the head-to-head was 3-1 in her favour. The players were fighting hard right from the start, and it was very noticeable that Kerber was going after Keys’ serve hard. It took 3 deuces for Keys to hold her serve and equal to 1-1. Keys kept her momentum and broke Kerber with a clean game, only to be broken back to 2-2. Kerber held with a clean game, and then came two long games, which yielded altogether 4 break points but no breaks. Kerber broke Keys’ serve one game later and then successfully took the first set. Keys was not too impressive on her serve today, when she won only 2 points out of 10 after a second serve and won only 48% of points on her serve overall.
Kerber had a rocket start to the second set, getting two breaks off of Keys and got a comfortable lead of 4-0, never losing more than two points in a game. Keys started to come back after, but she wasn’t able to break her opponent, so despite losing only one point in her last two service games, she still lost 2-6. Kerber was very strong on her serve in the second set, having 73% of serves in and the same percentage of service points won. Angelique Kerber will next face Victoria Azarenka for a spot in the final of Miami Open. Azarenka has the lead of 6-1 in their head-to-head, but Kerber won their last meeting earlier this year at the Australian Open quarterfinals. Kerber won 6-3 7-5 and later the whole tournament. This match will be played at 9:00 PM of local time (2:00 AM GMT).