Keys, off to a good start looking for a title!

Madison Keys did not come to Eastbourne for a stroll. After taking out Gibson and then demolishing Bouzas Maneiro 6-0 6-1 in 54 minutes yesterday, the two-time champion of this tournament is sending a crystal-clear message to the rest of the draw: her serve is firing, her return is deadly, and she has rediscovered exactly the tennis that earned her two titles on this grass. There are players who like grass. And then there are those for whom grass seems tailor-made. Keys clearly belongs to the second category. Her flat groundstrokes, cannon of a serve, and ability to shorten rallies make her almost impossible to contain on this surface when she’s in this kind of form.

Kessler at least has the merit of being here, with two solid wins over Kasatkina and Kalinina this week. She has shown character and consistency. But she arrives in the quarterfinals with heavier legs after several tight matches, a weakened grass-court record this season, and above all she runs into a ‘finals-mode’ Keys who hasn’t given her last two opponents the slightest opening. On the grass of Devonshire Park, facing a player of this caliber in this kind of form, the task promises to be particularly cruel for the 7th seed.