By Chris Oddo | Friday April 6, 2018
Defending Volvo Car Open champion Daria Kasatkina was sent packing on Friday as Germany’s Julia Goerges put on an impressive display of power tennis to mow down the Russian in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3.
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Goerges improves to 4-2 lifetime over the 21-year-old World No.12, and she has now defeated Kasatkina three straight times.
Goerges struck 33 winners to just 8 for Kasatkina and finished a plus-15 in the winner to unforced error category. She also clocked nine aces and won 32 of 38 first-serve points to win for the eighth time in her last nine contests against players ranked higher than her.
2018 marks the fifth consecutive year that a German has reached the last four in Charleston. Andre Petkovic (2014) and Angelique Kerber (2015) went on the win the event. Kerber (SF) and Laura Siegemund (SF) were the Germans to reach the semifinals in the last two seasons.
2015 runner-up Madison Keys took the scenic route to victory on Friday as she had to battle tooth-and-nail to earn a 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-5 victory over American Bernarda Pera.
Pera, playing in her first tour-level quarterfinal, saved two match point to win the second set and then had a break lead at 4-2 in the third before Keys rallied for the victory.
After the match, Keys credited the on-court motivational tactics of her coach Lindsay Davenport with sparking her intensity down the stretch. "It needed to be, just show me you want it," she said of her sessions with Davenport. "As soon as she said that, I had to be proud of what I did on the court today. And I knew if I didn't leave it all out there, I would have been really mad at myself later.”
Keys finished with 30 winners and 28 unforced and broke serve five time on ten opportunities.
Keys will face either Alizé Cornet or Kiki Bertens in the semis; Goerges will face Anastasija Sevastova. Sevastova rolled past Kristyna Pliskova, 6-4, 6-0.