Australian Open day nine: Ash Barty and Rafael Nadal look to book semi-final berths

Madison Keys continues her barnstorming run at the Australian Open and sets up a potential semi-final showdown with Australia's Ash Barty.

Barty takes the court tonight after Spanish great Rafael Nadal takes on Canadian Denis Shapovalov.

Follow our live blog.

To leave a comment on the blog, please log in or sign up for an ABC account.

By Paul Johnson

Australian doubles specialist John Peers has had his hopes of a second Australian Open title dashed.

He and Slovakian doubles partner Filip Polasek lost their quarter-final in straight sets to Spaniard Marcel Granollers and his partner Horacio Zeballos of Argentina 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.

The third seeds now potentially await a semi-final showdown with Australian pair Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.

By Paul Johnson

That didn't take long in this battle of the lefties.

Could have been nerves but Shapovalov played a really untidy game there and was broken to love by Nadal after a smattering of forehand unforced errors to give the Spaniard a 3-1 lead, which he then consolidated quickly on serve to make it 4-1.

By Paul Johnson

The 2017 US Open finalist absolutely dominated French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova 6-3, 6-2 and extended her unbeaten run to 10 matches ahead of her semi-final appearance.

Should Barty get past Keys' American compatriot Jessica Pegula tonight it would mark the fourth meeting between the pair with Barty holding a 2-1 lead.

Keys though has rarely been in her current form in recent years and her domination of Krejcikova showed that.

The powerful American blasted 1 aces amid 27 total winners against the Czech.

In her post match interview Keys told interviewer Jelena Dokic “I think I’m gonna cry”. 

She said that was due to a trough last year on tour.

“Last year was really hard