Sloane Stephens Advances to French Open 2018 Final with Win vs. Madison Keys

Sloane Stephens booked a place in the 2018 French Open final on Thursday as she swept aside fellow American Madison Keys in straight sets.

The 25-year-old eased to a 6-4, 6-4 victory at Roland Garros to set up Saturday's final against Simona Halep, who had earlier beaten Garbine Muguruza to reach her fourth Grand Slam final.

Reigning U.S. Open champion Stephens gave away just one break of serve to her compatriot, who struggled to trouble the 10th seed for much of the contest.

Unforced Errors By Keys Gift Easy Win to Stephens 

Keys may have put up more of a fight than she did against Stephens in last year's U.S. Open final, which the latter won 6-3, 6-0, but she'll be disappointed with her showing in the Paris semi-final.

The 13th seed showed the occasional flash of her talent, but because of her frequently sloppy play, Stephens scarcely had to work for her victory.

Per the tournament's official website, Stephens won 68 points in total in the match, and 41 of them were gifted to her by Keys' unforced errors.

As the Tennis Channel's Jon Wertheim noted, it's a recurring theme in Keys' clashes with Stephens:

Keys was only able to cause her opponent any real trouble deep in the second set, in which she briefly staved off defeat by breaking Stephens in her first attempt to serve out the match.

It marked a far cry from her play leading up to the semi-final, as she had not even dropped a set prior to this match, but Keys evidently has trouble showing her best when Stephens is on the other side of the net.

Stephens Has Uphill Battle to Beat Halep

Stephens was calm and collected on Thursday, as evidenced by her clean play—she made just 11 unforced errors—and having won a Grand Slam, she has accomplished something Halep has failed to in three attempts.

The pair are both defensive specialists, which adds further intrigue to their matchup, but Halep should be considered a fairly strong favourite.

Tennis writer Tumaini Carayol believes the pair having similar styles plays into Halep's hands:

It has in their past meetings—the No. 1 seed has won five of their seven matches, not lost to Stephens since 2013 and never on clay.

What's more, whereas Stephens barely had to get out of second gear in her semi-final, Halep was a force to be reckoned with as she beat Muguruza 6-1, 6-4. 

Tennis writer Courtney Nguyen was full of praise for the Romanian:

Halep has an extra hurdle to overcome having failed in three Grand Slam finals, but if she replicates her performance from Thursday, there may be little Stephens can do to beat her.