Simona Halep has an unbeaten 9-0 record in 2018 after arriving in Melbourne on the back of winning the Shenzhen title. It has been a dramatic week for Halep as she has fought her way into the quarter-final stage at the Australian Open for the third time. The Romanian suffered a major scare in the opening round when she badly rolled her ankle in a tough victory over Destanee Aiava. Halep has been able to manage her ankle injury well, the Romanians biggest test came in the third round where she saved match points on route to an epic 4-6 6-4 15-13 victory over Lauren Davis. There were big questions marks around how Halep would recover from that win over Davis, Halep squashed those question marks, producing her best performance of the tournament to beat Naomi Osaka 6-3 6-2 to reach the quarter-final stage of a Grand Slam for the 10th time.

I am going with Halep because her game is more consistent than that of the Czech, and she looks to be in better physical shape as well. Lets hope her ankle will hold.

Pick: Halep at 1.87 on Pinnaclesports

The German has been one of the most impressive players in the tournament so far, showing that she can still perform at the very highest level, despite her poor year last year. In many ways, this is a similar match-up to the Pliskova-Halep quarterfinal, for Keys will try and blast Kerber off the court from the baseline, and Kerber will have to prevent Keys from getting a foothold in the match. I am going for a Kerber win in two close sets, based on the fact that she is a more complete player than Keys, and has the mental strength to stay composed, even when things do not go her way during a match. A lot depends on whether Keys gets frustrated with Kerbers ability to put every ball back in court.

Pick: Kerber at 1.68 on Pinnaclesports