Madison Keys did not light up Arthur Ashe Stadium with dozens of eye-popping winners, but played a controlled, effective match to swiftly dispatch Carla Suárez Navarro 6-4, 6-3 on Wednesday and reach the semifinals of the US Open for a second consecutive year.
Keys, the runner-up to Sloane Stephens a year ago, hit 22 winners and had only six aces, but she won an exceptional number of first serve points and wore down Suárez Navarro on the long rallies that defined the match.
The 14th seeded American was at her best on a measured night in the second set. She won her first 12 first serve points, faced a solitary break point and won it despite forcing break chances in just one game.
Two big forehands set up 15-40 in that 2-3 game, and she punctuated the second of those opportunities with a short, crosscourt backhand return that landed just inside the line, leaving the 30-year-old Spaniard helpless. Suárez Navarro had a glimmer of home in the final game after Keys double faulted on her first match point, but she swatted away a break point, set up another clinching chance with a backhand up the line and secured the win when the Spaniard plopped a groundstroke into the doubles alley.
The first set played out in similar fashion. Keys played better points in Suárez Navarro’s 4-5 service game, then coolly redirected a forehand down the line on her second set point. Keys hit no more winners than her opponent, the No. 30 seed, in the opening frame, but forced more break points and eventually converted one.
The American had earned her first break point in the opening game, but Suárez Navarro was generally untroubled by Keys’ supreme power. The Spaniard, in fact, matched her opponent’s shotmaking ability at points in the early stages and forced a break point of her own, but Keys escaped the rare bouts of trouble she faced with powerful, unreturnable serves.
That pattern continued in the second set. When Keys had wrapped up the victory after an hour and 21 minutes, she secured her third grand slam semifinal in the last five majors and a Thursday meeting with Naomi Osaka, against whom a victory would propel Keys to a second straight US Open final.
