Has Madison Keys forgotten how to lose? American wins 16th straight to make Indian Wells semifinal

The beat goes on for Madison Keys who may have simply forgotten how to lose.

A day after a grueling three-set win over Donna Vekic to make the quarterfinals at the BNP Paribas Open, Keys needed just an hour and four minutes to move into the semifinals with a commanding 6-1, 6-1 win over Belinda Bencic.

The win is the 16th in a row for Keys, who had her breakthrough victory in January at the Australian Open and won the lead-in tournament before that in Adelaide. The 16 consecutive match wins are the second-most wins in a row for a player 30 years old or older since 2000.

Has she forgotten what it feels like to lose?

“No,” she said with a smile. “No, you still remember what losing feels like. That’s probably something that you’ll never really forget. I don’t think I’ve ever had a streak this long, but obviously would like for it to go even further.”

The 30-year-old Keys is playing the best tennis of her long career and her ranking shows it as she now sits at No. 5, her highest mark ever.

The semifinal trip is the deepest Keys has ever been at the BNP Paribas Open, and she has won just one Masters 1000 title in 79 tries over her career, but this is a new Keys.

With her new-found level late in her career, she is accomplishing things she never had before and statistics show just how rare this kind of late-career surge is.

She is the fourth player to reach their first Indian Wells semifinal after the age of 30, joining Elena Vesnina in 2017, Flavia Pennetta in 2014 and Martina Navratilova in 1990. The other three went on to win the title.

This is her 12th time playing Indian Wells. She matches Pennetta for the most times participating in this event before breaking through for a maiden semifinal appearance.

Keys’ winning streak will be put to the test in the semifinal as she will now face World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Friday’s semifinal. Sabalenka beat Liudmilla Samsonova 6-2, 6-3. It will be a rematch of the Australian Open that Keys won in three sets.

Her confidence is at an all-time high, and it’s changed her decision-making on the court in certain ways.

“The reality of winning as many matches as I have this early in a season hasn’t ever really happened for me, so I think there is definitely a lot of just kind of confidence from all those wins under your belt,” she said. “It kind of gives me the confidence to, in really tight situations, just continue to go for kind of whatever I want to.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Madison Keys tops Belinda Bencic in BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells