Sabalenka extends strong start to season with win over Keys

World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka continued her strong start to the year when she beat Madison Keys in straight sets on Friday to move into the semifinals of the Brisbane International.

In a replay of the 2025 Australian Open final won by Keys, Sabalenka took revenge on the American with a 6-3, 6-3 victory.

Keys was playing less than 24 hours after her marathon three-hour win over Russia's Diana Shnaider late on Thursday.

The fatigue seemed to show as she turned in an uncharacteristically error-strewn performance and struggled on serve as Sabalenka struck a series of superb returns.

Sabalenka will play Czech surprise package Karolina Muchova in the semifinals after the 11th seed held her nerve to see off world No 5 Elena Rybakina 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.

Muchova raced through the first set against an out-of-sorts Rybakina, who eventually found some rhythm to claim the second.

But Muchova broke the former Wimbledon champion once in the third set to get over the line, helped by her opponent's 42 unforced errors.

Muchova has won her last three matches against Sabalenka though the last was in 2024 at the China Open.

"If it's a year-and-a-half back, we both are different players than we were before," Muchova said.

"But yeah, these matches before were very long battles, I think always three-setters and could have gone either way."