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Madison Keys was part of the US women's semifinals last year at the US Open. Wednesday night, she became the only one of the last four to have made a comeback by defeating Carla Suárez Navarro, 6-4, 6-3, in the quarter-finals.
Keys, 23, was calm, composed and confident throughout her tournament, and admitted that she grew up "better managing her emotions once in this game.
"Knowing that everything is probably going to be more complicated, and not distracting, but be honest about it and talk about it," she added. "Just, you know, kiss the moment. I'm just trying to remind myself to have fun and enjoy the experience.
Novak Djokovic did not seem to be having fun for most of the match, winning a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over fifth-ranked John Millman to give the tournament a rare late after midnight. Djokovic has qualified for a semi-final Friday against Kei Nishikori, the No. 21 seed.
The score was simpler than the match, which was a tough battle in heavy and wet conditions. The average duration of the rally was 6.47 rounds; a few other matches of the tournament have exceeded five.
Even though it was only broken once, Djokovic could only convert 4 of the 20 break points that he had earned.
It was not easy to find breaks in the previous women's match.
Keys, the No. 14 seed, defeated Suárez Navarro for the first time in the last game of the first set.
The keys found this shot more often in the second set, knocking five winners forehand to bring his total to eight for the match. Suárez Navarro, 30th, was able to use her variety and spin with great success, eliminating sixth seed Caroline Garcia and 22nd Maria Sharapova to reach her second quarter-final.
She improved her quarter-final performance in 2013 – when Serena Williams was shutout 6-0, 6-0 by her birthday – but failed to convince Keys, patient and cautious, to have committed enough mistakes to take the lead.
Keys, a semi-finalist at the French Open in June, has now reached three semi-finals in the last five Grand Slam tournaments, more than anyone else in the women's game.
Each time she has had an American company in the last four, but never as much as Keys' American quartet, Sloane Stephens, Venus Williams and CoCo Vandeweghe. After defeating Vandeweghe in the semifinal last year, Keys lost to Stephens in the final. Vandeweghe lost in the first round this year and was followed by Williams in the third round and Stephens in the quarterfinals.
Keys did not beat the flag alone this year: Serena Williams, who missed last year's event to give birth to her daughter, is in the semi-finals.
On Thursday, Keys will face Naomi Osaka, 6-1, 6-1, Wednesday afternoon against Lesia Tsurenko. This will be the first semifinal of Osaka's Grand Slam.
Keys has won the previous three games with Osaka, but their first match was one of the most spectacular in the history of the tournament. In a third-round match in 2016, Keys came back from 1-5 in the third set to beat Osaka at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
"I think it was probably the first time I was on Ashe and I had to learn how to use the crowd," Keys said about the 2016 match. "It was certainly some thing that I learned and that I used. I now know, as a house favorite, to let the crowd in and let them help me.
Millman, as mediator against Djokovic, was also a natural favorite of the crowd, especially as he won several long rallies in the middle of the second run. He also had to stop the second set at 2-2 to change his outfit: his constant oozing of sweat made the court slippery.
But Djokovic sailed in this hurdle, and under the difficult conditions, to continue his quest for a 14th Grand Slam title.
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