By Jeremy Harness

After the first set, it looked like a carbon copy of Madison Keys’ blowout win Monday night.

However, the match made a 180-degree turn very quickly, and Keys found herself on the wrong end of a beatdown the rest of the way, as Ajla Tomljanovic pulled off the upset of the 20-year-old American, who is ranked 17th by the WTA at press time, by a score of 1-6, 6-4 and 6-1 to move on to the semifinal round of the Bank of the West Classic held at Stanford Wednesday.

In the third and deciding set, the Croatian won 10 of her 13 first serves, and she also broke Keys’ serve three times while not being broken once herself.

The real advantage that Keys had was her serve, as she recorded nine aces to only one for Tomljanovic, but Tomljanovic kept the pressure on Keys in the final two sets and played very solid tennis to gain the upper hand.

Another American did not fare any better. Stanford product Nicole Gibbs saw her run through this tournament come to an end against Elina Svitolina, who took Gibbs down in straight sets, 6-3 and 7-6, to punch her ticket to the semifinals.

Svitolina held the advantage in first serves won, as she won 57 percent of them to Gibbs’ 40 percent. Both players were able to break the other’s serve with a good amount of regularity, but Svitolina held a slight edge in that category as well, as she was able to save half of her break points while Gibbs only saved 36 percent.

However, all was not lost on the American side, and Alison Riske made sure of that. She pulled off the upset of the tournament thus far, as she downed Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-4.

There were only two aces in the match, and both belonged to Riske, who also held the advantage in first services won, including a 70-percent clip in the second set, and that that proved to be the difference in the match, offsetting the seven double faults she committed.