{"id":22898,"date":"2026-01-26T09:26:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/pegula-knocked-out-defending-champion-keys\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:48","slug":"pegula-knocked-out-defending-champion-keys","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/pegula-knocked-out-defending-champion-keys\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegula knocked out defending champion Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Sixth seed Jessica Pegula knocked out defending champion Madison Keys in the all-American showdown at the Australian Open tennis tournament.<\/div>\n<div>\nPegula secured a dominant victory to reach the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park for the fourth time.<\/p>\n<p>Pegula made a blistering start at Rod Laver Arena.<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\nShe continued in her relentless way, cruising to a 6-3, 6-4 victory.<\/div>\n<div>The 31-year-old, who made three consecutive Melbourne quarterfinals from 2021 to 2023, is chasing an elusive Grand Slam title after reaching the US Open final in 2024.<\/div>\n<div>\nFor defending champion, Keys, who stunned heavy favourite Aryna Sabalenka in last year&#8217;s final for her maiden Slam title, it&#8217;s the end of the road.<\/div>\n<div>\nHer triumph has set up a clash with another American, fourth seed Amanda Anisimova.<\/div>\n<div>\nAnisimova maintained her Grand Slam momentum by beating China&#8217;s Wang Xinyu 7-6, 6-4 to reach her first Australian Open quarterfinal.<\/div>\n<div>\nIn another fourth round match, Elena Rybakina defeated Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-1, 6-3 in a match that lasted one hour and 17 minutes.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22899,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-22898","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Pegula knocked out Keys","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26041,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22898\/revisions\/26041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}