It’s amazing how quickly things can turn around in tennis.  After a painful second round loss to Sloane Stephens in Miami, Madison Keys has gone on the rampage in Charleston, losing just nine games in her first three matches.  In her dance through the draw, Keys has beaten Kateryna Bondarenko, Andreea Mitu and fellow American, Lauren Davis who she dispatched, 6-2 6-2 in the first of the 2015 Family Circle quarter-finals.  It was an excellent performance from Keys who encountered some late resistance, having to fend off break points in the last game of the match.  Keys was striking the ball beautifully off both wings and has looked in complete control of her game this week.

Much expectation was lauded on Keys’s shoulders after she reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open.  Her talent is there for all to see but she still hasn’t proved herself, week in, week out on the tour.  Last season there were flashes of brilliance, but these were all too often interspersed between first and second round exits.  In fact, Keys lost in the first or second round in 16 of her 22 tournaments in 2014.  Her run in Melbourne stands out like a beacon from her results in 2015.  It has given her a much needed rankings boost, which will help her out in draws where she was frequently missing out on seedings last year.

Keys will take on another big hitter in the semi-finals, Lucie Hradecka.  It still baffles me that Hradecka is currently ranked outside of world’s the top 100.  Even though inconsistency is always going to be a feature with her game, it’s hard to fathom how with her serve and ball striking abilities that she hasn’t had more success on the singles tour.  Hradecka has enjoyed wins over Zarina Diyas, Kristina Kucova, Caroline Garcia and Sara Errani.  In particular, Hradecka played a superb match against Sara Errani, who didn’t play a bad match.  Errani’s serve continues to get a lot of flack, but I have read quite a few comments online that the Italian player suffers from a shoulder condition.  This result from Lucie hasn’t been a flash in the pan.  In 2015,  Hradecka beat Ana Ivanovic at the Australian Open en route to reaching the last 16, and also successfully qualified for the main draws of Auckland, Acapulco, Indian Wells and Charleston.

This will be the first time that Keys and Hradecka have played each other on the WTA tour and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be a serve-dominated affair.  There really isn’t much to separate the pair…

Prediction: Keys d. Hradecka in 3 sets