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World No.25 Madison Keys has ruined the debut of Daria Gavrilova to the Fed Cup, taking a commanding straight sets win and handing the USA a 1-0 lead over Australia.
REPORT: GAVRILOVA BEATEN IN FED CUP OPENER
Keys’ powerful game was just way too much for Gavrilova, who struggled to find her rhythm at any point in the match, despite coming back from a break in the first set.
When Keys got her first serve right, it almost seemed impossible for Gavrilova to have any chance of getting a rally going or having any say in which course the game was going to take.
Unfortunately for Gavrilova, her first serve was nothing in comparison to that of Keys, and she often was getting groundstrokes wrong. She barely cleared the service line a lot of the time, and playing on clay it meant Keys had all the time in the world to put shots away and get a massive wind up.
Gavrilova went down a break very early in the first set, and then bounced back to tie up the first set. When she fell down a break for the second time, and failed to bounce back, despite being on break point the first set got away from her quickly.
In the end, it still looked like she was in the match but went down 6-4.
The second set though was all one way traffic. Gavrilova fought hard early, but her attitude and momentum of play visually changed when she went down a break again. She never looked like she was going to get back into the match, and ended up going down another break before Keys hung on 6-2 in the second set for the big victory.
The attention now turns to Sam Stosur vs Christina McHale, with all sorts of pressure on Stosur to tie the rubber heading into tomorrow.
Score
Daria Gavrilova 4 2
Madison Keys 6 6
The first rubber of the Fed Cup world group playoff between Australia and the USA sees Daira Gavrilova make her debut against world No.25 Madison Keys. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 11am (AEST).
After a long wait, Gavrilova has finally been given permission to play in the Australian team and is keen to make her mark.
This could be, looking at the rubbers across the weekend, the most important for the United States to win though, considering Chrstina McHale has been selected to play singles and couldn’t be expected – apart from those within her own camp – to win any of her singles matches.
Gavrilova is quite strong on the clay court, which is probably a large part of the reason she has earned a spot to play singles for Australia, with Casey Dellacqua traditionally struggling on clay. Gavrilova has won nearly 60 per cent of her career matches on clay, and while her recent form can’t be counted as fantastic, she is still winning enough matches to say she is capable.
Since her fourth round bomb out in the Australian Open to Carla Suarrez Navaro, she has won only five matches but was strong in her last tournament which was played on clay in Charleston. She advanced to the third round with victories over Zarian Diyas and Shuai Zhang before being knocked out by Sloane Stephens.
Keys on the other hand has had three previous singles matches during Fed Cup ties and only won one of them. They came back in 2014, and so can’t heavily be relied on but none the less the losses may play on her mind.
Keys, like Gavrilova, has a fairly solid record on clay, averaging almost 60 per cent of matches as wins. It is not her strongest court, but it goes without saying she is successful and enjoys playing on the red surface.
While Keys was in good form during the hard court season, in particular at Miami where she advanced to the fourth round before being knocked out by Angelique Kerber, her only match on clay – like Gavrilova at Charleston – saw a three set loss to Laura Siegemund. With all due respect, is it not a match Keys should be losing.
Before today, the pair have never played against each other.
Prediction
Gavrilova will be keen to prove a point and this is a big match in the course of the rubber, as the first one always is. At home against Keys who has been inconsistent, she should get the job done.
Gavrilova in three sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores and coverage of this match from 11am (AEST) and don’t forget to add your own comments in the section below.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde