Published: April 4, 2026 at 10:43 am
Madison Keys has made it to the semifinals at Charleston for the fourth time. In a battle of past champions, Keys rallied to defeat 2022 champion Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in a breezy, sunny day at Stadium Court on Friday.
Keys enters her first WTA semifinal of the season and improves to 4-2 against the Swiss. She returns to the semifinals in the Lowcountry for the first time since her title run in 2019 and will next face McCartney Kessler or Yuliia Starodubtseva. The win over Bencic is her first top 20 win of 2026.
“I feel like I kind of had some opportunities in the first set, but I’m really happy that I didn’t get too down on myself and was able to kind of recover quickly, and overall I think I played pretty solid second and third set,” Keys told the media.
Drop shots weren’t a common occurrence as both players tried to outhit one another. Notably, Keys had 41 winners to Bencic’s 18.
Jovic loves clay as it suits her game
Iva Jovic is still learning her way around clay, but the early returns continue to look promising, as the 18-year-old American advanced to the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Anna Kalinskaya in 1 hour and 21 minutes.
“I’m loving the clay,” Jovic said in her on-court interview. “I’ve put in a lot of work to get more comfortable on this surface and it’s been paying off, so I’m excited to keep the fun going. This is only the first event on clay, so much more to come.”
She believes the surface suits her game. Jovic is the third American into the semifinals, joining Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys, who both won earlier on Friday. It’s her third WTA Tour semifinal of the season and her first since January, when she reached the Hobart final before falling to Elisabetta Cocciaretto.
To get here, Jovic had to navigate a dangerous opponent in Kalinskaya, and she did it with a blistering start. Jovic’s backhand was humming early. She fired one down the line to set up her first break point of the match, then struck another winner off that wing to break at her first opportunity and take a 2-0 lead.
Kalinskaya broke back for 4-3, but Jovic immediately responded with another break to earn a chance to serve out the set. Kalinskaya saved two set points, but Jovic converted the third to take the opener in 40 minutes.
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Jovic broke to open the second set, but Kalinskaya answered for 1-1 and later broke again with a perfectly measured lob for 4-2. As in the first set, Jovic broke right back, this time with sharp defense at the net, and never looked back.
It sparked a run of four straight games for Jovic, who broke again for 5-4 and served out the match to advance. Next up is Pegula in what will be just their second meeting. Pegula won the first in straight sets earlier this year in Dubai.
Pegula has come from a set down in three straight matches to reach the semifinals, and Jovic thinks another grind might be in the cards.
Pegula’s title defence stays intact
Pegula’s title defense continued to take the scenic route on Friday. For the third time in as many matches this week, the No. 1 seed had to come from a set down and then a break down in the third set, eventually quelling Diana Shnaider 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in 2 hours and 10 minutes.
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Pegula had already overturned third-set deficits of 2-0 against Yulia Putintseva in the second round and 4-1 against Elisabetta Cocciaretto in the third round. Against Shnaider, she had to withstand a series of crowd-pleasing hot shots from the surging No. 7 seed before reeling off the last six games in a row from 2-0 down in the decider.
Pegula’s third-set numbers are boosted once again with the result. She’s 9-1 in three-set matches in 2026 now, and 18-4 since the US Open. She advances to her fourth semifinal in six tournaments this year, where she will face No. 4 seed Iva Jovic, who Pegula most recently beat in Dubai.
