Eighth seed Madison Keys will take on close friend Sloane Stephens in the second round of the 2021 Charleston Open on Wednesday, April 7. Get the live streaming options of this Madison Keys v Sloane Stephens match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Madison Keys v Sloane Stephens Head to Head
Stephens has a 3-1 lead head to head.
The World No. 57 didn’t drop a set against Keys in their first three meetings, winning 6-4, 6-2 in Miami in 2015, 6-3, 6-0 in the final of the U.S. Open in 2017 and 6-4, 6-4 in the semifinal of the French Open in 2018.
Keys’s only win came in Charleston in 2019, when she defeated Stephens 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-2 in the quarterfinals. The win was followed by two more victories as Keys went on to capture the title. .
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Defending Champ Keys Searching for Form
Defending champion Madison Keys will begin her 2021 campaign on Wednesday, after the eighth seed was handed a first round bye.
The World No. 24 hasn’t been in best of forms and comes into the tournament with a 2-3 record this year.
Having missed the start of the season after testing positive for COVID-19, the 26-year-old returned to court at the Qatar Open, toppling the sixth seed Belinda Bencic in straight sets but winning just four games in her Round of 16 defeat to Greece’s Maria Sakkari.
In Dubai, Keys once again dominated her first round match, defeating the lowly ranked En-Shuo Liang of Taipei 6-1, 6-1, but was knocked out by Russia’s Anastasia Potapova in the next round.
In her third tournament of the year, in Miami, Keys was stunned by Croatia’s Ana Konjuh in the second round after being handed a first round bye.
A five-time winner on the WTA tour, Keys had defeated Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets to win the Charleston Open title in 2019, four years after losing the final of the Premier event to Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
Keys, who won her first Premier 5 event in Cincinnati in 2019, has lost five finals in her career, including the U.S. Open in 2017. Her last final was in Brisbane last year, which she lost to Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova.
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Stephens Ousts Lucky Loser
2016 Charleston Open champion needed an hour and 25 minutes to dispatch Chinese lucky loser Xinyu Wang in the first round on Tuesday.
Saving five of six break points and breaking her opponent four times in the match, Stephens won the contest 6-2, 6-4 to record only her second win of the year.
The 28-year-old, who came into the tournament with a woeful 1-5 record in 2021, dominated the first set against the Chinese, but had to stave off a late surge from the 19-year-old before closing out the contest.
Ranked 57th in the world, the 2017 U.S. Open champion had a 0-4 start to the season, losing to Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez at the Grampians Trophy; Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva at the Australian Open; Russia’s Varvara Gracheva at the Phillip Island Trophy and Slovakia’s Kristina Kucova at the Monterrey Open.
She finally ended the losing streak with a win over France’s Oceane Dodin in the first round in Miami, only to lose the next round against fellow American Amanda Anisimova.
The American, who hasn’t won a title since winning in Miami in 2018 and hasn’t reached a final since losing the WTA Finals final the same year, has been in poor form since 2020.
Last year, Stephens won just four of her 15 matches and lost eight of her first round contests.
In 2016, the American won the Charleston Open title by beating Russian qualifier Elina Vesnina in the final.
Keys v Stephens Prediction and Tip
It’s a matchup between two former champions and one can expect this to be a close one. Given Stephens’ dodgy form, Keys might be a slight favourite, more so because she ended the former’s dominance of their rivalry at this very tournament in 2019. Three sets look imminent in this second round contest.
Tip: Three sets in the match: 6/4 (bet365)
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The 2021 Charleston Open will be played from April 5 to 11. You can watch & bet on these matches here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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