Laura Siegemund of Germany returns to Madison Keys of the U.S. during their women's singles third-round match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London on Friday. (AP photo)

LONDON — This most unpredictable of Wimbledons delivered yet another surprise Friday when reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys, the No. 6 seed, was a lopsided loser in the third round, eliminated 6-3, 6-3 by 104th-ranked Laura Siegemund of Germany.

Keys’ exit left just one of the top six women in the bracket before the end of Week 1: No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who stuck around by claiming the last five games and defeating 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu of Britain 7-6 (6), 6-4 at a boisterous Centre Court at night.

No. 2 Coco Gauff, No. 3 Jessica Pegula, No. 4 Jasmine Paolini and No. 5 Zheng Qinwen already were out. The men’s field also has seen its share of surprises, including a Wimbledon-record 13 seeds gone in the first round.

“At times, it wasn’t the best quality, let’s say. But I managed, and in the end, it’s just important to find solutions and I did that well. Kept my nerves in the end,” said Siegemund, at 37 the oldest woman remaining in the tournament, then added with a laugh: “There are always nerves. If you don’t have nerves in this moment, you’re probably dead.”

Wimbledon might be the only Grand Slam event where Keys hasn’t reached at least the semifinals, but she has participated in the quarterfinals there twice and is enjoying a breakthrough 2025, including her title at Melbourne Park in January.

Keys’ power vs. Siegemund’s spins and slices offered quite a contrast in styles, and this outcome was surprisingly one-way traffic on a windy afternoon at No. 2 Court. The key statistic, undoubtedly, was this: Keys made 31 unforced errors, 20 more than Siegemund.

When it ended with one last backhand return from Keys that sailed wide, Siegemund smiled broadly, raised her arms and jumped up and down repeatedly.

“You can’t not be happy when you beat a great player like Madison,” Siegemund said.

How unexpected is this for Siegemund? Before this year, her career record at the All England Club was 2-5, and she’d never made it past the second round.

What else happened?

Ben Shelton played for all of four points and about a minute, wrapping up his second-round match against Rinky Hijikata that was suspended Thursday night. Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz reached the fourth round by beating Jan-Lennard Struff in four sets. Other men’s seeds advancing were No. 5 Taylor Fritz, No. 14 Andrey Rublev and No. 17 Karen Khachanov.

In the women’s draw, four-time major title winner Naomi Osaka’s Wimbledon ended in the third round for the third time, eliminated by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. No. 13 Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. advanced to the fourth round, as did No. 24 Elise Mertens and No. 30 Linda Noskova.

___

Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis