Two friends in real life

Madison Keys is not just a good grass-court player, it’s her preferred surface, with a 74% career win rate and three titles, including two in Berlin. Her display against Muchová on Thursday confirmed what we already knew: when her first serve goes in at 69%, she becomes almost untouchable on serve. She breaks at 47.8% when she creates chances, which means that every break point she gets on Pegula’s serve has about a fifty-fifty chance of converting. And she’s won 8 of her last 10 matches on all surfaces combined.

Pegula is the defending champion at this tournament in 2024 and her defensive metrics on grass are solid, notably 72.3% of break points saved. But she only breaks at 29.9%, and against a Keys who lands her first serve at almost 70%, chances will be scarce. The 2–2 head-to-head doesn’t give any edge to either player and they’ve never faced each other on grass. Keys vs top 10 over the last 52 weeks is 2–5, the only real drawback to this angle.