For a short while on Monday it seemed that Madison Keys had finally found Renata Zarazua. But it proved to be short-lived. Keys was unable to maintain her second set rally and suffered from surprising upset against Zarazúa, who won 6-7 (10), 7-6 (3) and 7-5 in the first round of the 2025 US Open.
Zarazúa gave the key to suit the entire match. What appears to be an easy win for the sixth-placed woman, Keys couldn’t clean up the unseeded Mexican player in the first set. Key ultimately won set 7-6, but only after a long tiebreak.
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Early in the second set, Keys seemed to have found her path. She took an early lead over Zarazua 3-0 and appeared in command, but was unable to retain the advantage. The key created 29 forced errors in the second set and fell to Zarazua with a tiebreak to set up the third set.
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The final set followed the same blueprint as the first two. Zarazúa and Keys swapped the game early, with Zarazúa taking a narrow 4-3 lead in the final set. She defeated the Keys serve in the eighth game, pushing the lead up to 5-3.
In a Line match, the Keys broke to 5-5. Zarazua joined the next game and placed himself in order to win the match again. This time she finished the key on another break and won the final set 7-5 and played in the match.
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Unlimited error was the downfall of her loss while Key led with seven aces. Key committed Zarazua vs. Amazing 89 forced errors, most of which came to the first two sets. Key committed 23 forced errors in the final set. That wasn’t enough improvement to hold back Zarazua from her previous set.
This is a huge loss for the Keys, who plays some of the best tennis of their careers in 2025. The Keys kicked off the year by winning the Australian Open. She then arrived in the quarterfinals at the French Open for the first time since 2019. Keys wasn’t that impressive at Wimbledon and fell into the third round.
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Monday’s match was faced by Key and Zarazua for the second time. Keys won their first encounter by beating Zarazua at the 2024 French Open. With Monday’s victory, Zarazua evened his head-to-head record.
Zarazua made it to the second round of the US Open for the second round of her career after doing so last year.
Her second round opponent will be Diane Parry on Wednesday. The two have played each other twice before, and both Zarazua have won.
