The USA's Madison Keys upset second seed Iga Swiatek in a three-set semi-final epic to reach the women's singles final at the Australian Open, where she will take on two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka.
After saving a match point, the 19th seed held her nerve in a nail-biting 10-point tie-break to prevail 5-7 6-1 7-6[8] against a dejected Swiatek, taking two hours and 35 minutes to reach her first Melbourne showpiece.
Keys recovered from losing serve four times in the first set by storming into a 5-0 lead in the second, breaking Swiatek four times en route to levelling the contest and forcing an absorbing decider.
The American was seemingly fatally broken in the 11th game of the third set, but Swiatek double-faulted at the worst time to gift Keys a crucial break back before the 29-year-old edged a topsy-turvy tie-breaker.
Keys - who is now the oldest AO women's finalist since Serena Williams and Venus Williams in 2017 - is through to only her second Grand Slam final, eight years on from losing the 2017 US Open showpiece to Sloane Stephens.
However, to achieve her Grand Slam dream, Keys will have to find a way past a three-peat chasing Sabalenka, who strode to a much more straightforward success over good friend Paula Badosa earlier in the day.
Sabalenka to retain number one ranking after Badosa win
© Imago
The pair put their strong off-court bond aside for one hour and 26 minutes on Thursday, where a merciless Sabalenka eased to a 6-4 6-2 victory, striking a mammoth 32 winners compared to just 11 for Badosa.
The Belarusian is now just one win away from clinching a third straight Australian Open title, a feat that has not been achieved by a women's singles player since Martina Hingis in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
Sabalenka has already joined Hingis in an exclusive club, as the two-time defending champion is just the eighth women's player to make it to three straight Australian Open finals in the Open Era.
Serena Williams, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Evonne Goolagong and Margaret Court also played in three consecutive showpiece matches in Melbourne, and Sabalenka will be the heavy favourite to retain her crown in Saturday's main event.
Badosa admitted in her post-match press conference that she felt powerless against the top seed, saying: "Sometimes you're like, I don't know, I'm just walking around the court because I feel like she's playing a PlayStation. Today she was like that. So sometimes I'm like, 'What's happening?' I don't have time even to think."
The 26-year-old - who has also retained the world number one ranking thanks to Swiatek's exit - has won four of her previous five contests with Keys at the top level, most recently a 6-4 6-3 victory in last year's China Open.
Before Sabalenka and Keys battle for glory on Saturday, the men's semi-finals take place on Friday, as Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev meet before defending champion Jannik Sinner and Ben Shelton vie for the second final spot.
Ben Knapton
