Keys opens door to Paris quarters with Buzarnescu win

PARIS, France - No.13 seed Madison Keys completed her set of Grand Slam quarterfinals with a heavyweight performance against No.31 seed Mihaela Buzarnescu, powering into the last eight in Paris for the first time in 65 minutes with a 6-1, 6-4 win.

It is the American's fifth major quarterfinal showing, and means that she becomes the 13th active player to have reached that stage at every Grand Slam following Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Angelique Kerber, Petra Kvitova, Francesca Schiavone, Simona Halep, Vera Zvonareva, Dominika Cibulkova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

"It's awesome - I mean, I can't really think of another word," she enthused after being informed of the feat. "This was always the one where it was the most difficult for me, and it was always the toughest one to feel like I could play well here. So to be able to get to the quarterfinals really means a lot."

Three unreturned serves in the US Open finalist's opening game set the tone for a contest in which she largely overpowered her opponent. Keys' weight of shot, set up by a booming delivery that reached 115mph, was mostly too much for the Romanian, who did not garner a single break point across Keys' first seven service games.

The 2016 Rome finalist also ascribed her run on clay this year to greater patience. "That's something that I have had to get better at in all aspects of my life, especially on the tennis court," she admitted. "So I think it's become more consistently better for me and something that I'm always going to have to work on.

"Even though [clay] is still not my favorite surface, I definitely feel more comfortable on it. I feel like this year especially, I have been finding the balance of being a little bit more patient but also playing my game, whereas before I feel like I would go too far one way. That's the biggest thing... remembering how I like to play tennis but just maybe adding a couple more shots to each rally."

As Keys cruised through the majority of her service games with efficiently executed one-two punches and a total of three aces, Buzarnescu was struggling to get the elegantly aggressive game going that had disposed of No.4 seed Elina Svitolina in the previous round. The oldest player second-week debutante in a Slam since Jill Craybas at Wimbledon 2005, the 30-year-old committed too many unforced errors even after she had managed to get into rallies, racking up 11 in the first set and 16 in the second. It was not until the second set that Buzarnescu was even able to win a point behind her second serve.

Only when each set seemed to be a lost cause did Buzarnescu play her best tennis. Having won just seven points across the first six games of the match - four in one service hold - the Hobart and Prague finalist resisted four set points, winners flowing off her racket from both wings and at the net, before Keys finally put a 22-minute opening set to bed with another one-two punch.

Similarly, having battled to hold serve at the start of the second set, Buzarnescu fell away desultorily for the next five games, falling behind by a double break with two double faults in the fifth game. But trailing 1-5, the left-hander began to engage Keys in longer all-court rallies that tested the 23-year-old's movement; having carved out her first break point following a net cord at 2-5, Buzarnescu took full advantage by whipping her forehand cross-court and approaching the net as Keys' defensive shot sailed long.

A brilliant reflex backhand winner was another Buzarnescu highlight as she reduced the deficit with another hold - but Keys, going back to basics, still had one more opportunity to serve the match out. This she took with aplomb, sealing victory with her fourth ace of the day.

Appropriately enough, Keys' full house of last-eight finishes caps 12 months in which her effectiveness at Slams has been markedly superior to her form outside them: the Australian Open quarterfinalist is now 15-3 in majors since the 2017 French Open, but just 10-9 in Tour events. Indeed, aside from her lone tournament win in the past year, at Stanford last July, Keys' Tour-level record is just 6-9.

The former World No.7 will get a chance to extend that statistic further in a bid to make her third Grand Slam semifinal with unseeded Yulia Putintseva looming in the last eight. Afterwards, she explained how her mental focus shifts at this stage in a major. "First week, my goal is to get to the second week." said Keys.

"Then once you get to the second week, every match obviously has more nerves, and there's more on the line and all of that. So now it's really just managing your expectations and your nerves and the moment."