Madison Keys reveals she faces 'gross' forfeit after losing to Jessica Pegula in fourth round of Australian Open - 'A bet is a bet'

Defending Australian Open champion Madison Keys was beaten in the fourth round of the Grand Slam by fellow American Jessica Pegula. The pair co-host a podcast together and had come up with forfeits for each other ahead of their match. With Keys' defeat, she has to fulfil her side of the bet, which she has called "gross". Pegula faces Amanda Anisimova in the quarter-finals.

Madison Keys was not just lamenting the end of her reign as Australian Open champion after losing to Jessica Pegula, but also the loss of a "gross" bet with her fellow American.

Pegula advanced to the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Keys, who won her first major a year ago in Melbourne.

The pair co-host 'The Player’s Box' podcast together and had come up with forfeits for each other ahead of their match.

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If Keys won, she was going to make Pegula, who is the daughter of Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula, wear a jersey of their rivals, the Kansas City Chiefs.

When Pegula won, she signed the camera with 'no Chiefs jersey today!'.

Instead, it will be Keys who has to pay up by eating apple pie with melted cheddar cheese on top.

"A bet is a bet, so I'll do it," said Keys afterwards.

"I hope it's less gross than I think it's going to be, but we will find out, I guess."

Keys had revealed ahead of the match how her and her fellow podcast hosts Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady had been "disgusted" by the sound of the sweet-savoury mix.

"Yeah, it's gross. We were doing this Thanksgiving podcast. We were talking about what's your favourite foods, your favourite desserts, whatever. Jess was like, ‘Yeah, it's so good. You take apple pie. You put a piece of cheddar cheese on top of it, and then you, cheddar, yellow cheddar… then you microwave it and then eat it'."

"She tried to make it sound like it was the most normal thing ever, and we were all just disgusted. She tried to double down and said, ‘No, it's amazing'."

Pegula said afterwards that she felt like her side of the forfeit would have been harder to take.

"Yeah, that was bad. She was, like, ‘Mine's worse’. I was, like, 'What are you talking about? My family owns the Bills. This team has owned us in the post-season. Absolutely not, by far worse.'

"I saw Iva Jovic in the locker room before I went on, and she was, like, ‘If you lose, that's way worse wearing the Chiefs jersey’. I'm, like, ‘Yeah, all she has to do is eat a piece of pie. What is the big deal?’

Defending champion Keys 'can walk away with head held high' after quarter-final loss

Video credit: SNTV

"I think that was really some extra motivation, because that would have been a tough moment for me."

Pegula broke Keys’ serve four times as she took just one hour and 18 minutes to advance to the quarters against another American, Amanda Anisimova.

Keys said she can "walk away with my head held high" and believes there are still areas of her game that she can improve at the age of 30.

"I think there is still a lot of runway for things that I can improve on. I'm definitely finding that there are some things that are harder to kind of change at this point, just because habits are pretty set in their ways.

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"So I feel like there are some things that I'm still picking up easily and just kind of being open to switching, and then there are some things that have just taken a little bit more time to try to fully figure out.

"I think those are the things that I'm still trying to improve, and those are kind of the things that we just keep going back to. When we have the opportunities to practise them, really emphasising them and harping on them and trying to get better at them.

"So there are definitely still, I think, a lot of things that I can get better at, and I think that's still pretty exciting for this point in my career."

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