Former champion Madison Keys returned to the Rothesay International final after a nine-year gap by defeating No.5 seed Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-3 in an all-American semifinal in Eastbourne on Friday.
World No.25 Keys collected the 24th Top 10 victory of her career by ousting seventh-ranked Gauff in 1 hour and 21 minutes, leveling their head-to-head at 2-2.
Keys will face No.9 seed Daria Kasatkina in Saturday's championship match. Kasatkina reached her first Rothesay International final with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Camila Giorgi.
Read more: 2023 Wimbledon seeds: Inside the numbers
Keys leads Kasatkina 8-2 in their head-to-head, although Kasatkina has won two of their last three meetings. This will be their first meeting on grass.
Head to Head
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Back in the championship match: Keys’s upset of Gauff is her first grass-court win over a Top 10 player since she beat Angelique Kerber to win the 2014 Rothesay International final.
That Eastbourne run in 2014 was a big career breakthrough for Keys, where she made her first Hologic WTA Tour final and won her first singles title as a 19-year-old.
Keys added a second grass-court title to her resume at Birmingham in 2016, but she had not reached a grass-court semifinal or final since then, until this week.
Match moments: With her semifinal win on Friday, Keys now has a chance to add another grass-court title to her collection. Keys fired 19 winners and converted four of her seven break points to topple Gauff.
"Really happy with how everything went today," Keys said in her post-match press conference. "Obviously a tough opponent in Coco, but I feel like I played a really solid match. Happy to be into another final here."
Keys took charge in the first set by breaking for 3-2 with a sturdy forehand winner. Keys consolidated for 4-2, saving a break point in the process, and she used heavy returns to break Gauff once more in the final game of the set.
Gauff returned well to clinch an early break in the second set, but she hit three consecutive double faults at 2-1 to allow Keys back on serve. Keys shook off a slip and fall during a key hold for 3-2, and she took a commanding lead with a break for 5-3 after Gauff sent a lob long.
Serving for the match, Keys saw triple match point erased as Gauff pulled from 40-0 to deuce. But Keys regrouped, converting her fourth match point with an unreturned serve to seal victory.
Kasatkina prevails: In the day's second semifinal, Kasatkina improved to 3-0 over Giorgi with a 1-hour and 23-minute victory. Kasatkina was a perfect 7-for-7 on break point conversion in the clash.
Highlights: Kasatkina def. Giorgi
Kasatkina was a point away from a 6-2, 5-1 lead, but World No.67 Giorgi made a second-set surge all the way back to 5-5. Kasatkina, though, claimed the last two games of the match to triumph. Giorgi has now lost in the Eastbourne semifinals in each of the last three editions.
"In the end of the match, Camila [started] to play much better, much more aggressive, more stable," Kasatkina said in press. "To close the match, I needed to increase my level, which I did, and I'm really happy about it."
With the semifinal win, World No.11 Kasatkina is projected to return to the Top 10 in Monday's updated singles rankings. Kasatkina reached a career-high ranking of No.8 in October of last year.
Kasatkina is into her second final of the year, having finished runner-up to Belinda Bencic at Adelaide International 2 in January. Kasatkina, like Keys, is aiming for her seventh career singles title.
