Madison Keys knocks off Petra Kvitova in China Open

American Madison Keys prevailed in a tight battle with Petra Kvitova on Friday to advance to the semifinals of the China Open at Beijing.

The eighth-seeded Keys capped off the two-hour, 41-minute match by winning a third-set tiebreaker to post the 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) victory over the 14th-seeded Kvitova.

"I think I played a pretty solid first set today, then she raised her level," Keys said afterward. "I just think at the end, it became a couple of points here or there. I think I got my serve back on track a little bit.

"I mean, really, it could have gone either way. It was really close."

Kvitova of the Czech Republic defeated Keys in the bronze-medal match of the Rio Olympics. This time, she fought to win a second-set tiebreaker to stay alive before Keys overcame some hiccups to win the final-set tiebreaker.

"I definitely think I got frustrated," Keys said. "You know, it's always tough when you're serving for a set and you have a bad game. Doing that a couple of times in a match is frustrating.

"But, you know, I think I did a really good job at staying focused and just trying to regroup and worry about the next point. You know, she made it really tough today. I'm just really happy that at the end I was able to get my serve back on track and get myself ahead in the tiebreaker."

Keys will meet Great Britain's Johanna Konta in the semifinals. The 11th-seeded Konta rolled to a 6-4, 6-0 victory over China's Zhang Shuai.

Konta lost the four games of the match before recovering to win the final 12.

"Even though it was 12 games in a row, the scoreline was a lot closer," Konta said. "Every single point was a really high level. I had to fight a lot at the end and I'm really happy to get through."

Third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and 16th-seeded Elina Svitolina will face off in the other semifinal.

Radwanska moved on with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan that took just 73 minutes.

Svitolina recorded a 7-6 (3), 6-1 victory over Australia's Daria Gavrilova. The Ukrainian is enjoying a solid tournament run that includes a win over top-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany.