Mumbai: Just a few occasions by means of her skilled profession that started in 2009, a thought — extra a query, actually — would go away Madison Keys feeling a bit paralysed on courtroom: “If it didn’t happen right now, would it ever happen?”
Madison Keys reached the Australian Open semifinals with a win over Elina Svitolina (AFP)
Moments after the 2023 US Open semi-final the place she was up 6-0, 5-3 earlier than a sensational turnaround by Aryna Sabalenka, Keys broke down and wept in her press convention. Maybe that thought seeped in once more for a participant now in her late twenties: wouldn’t it ever occur once more?
It has, on the 2025 Australian Open. A full decade after it first did.
The American is again within the semi-final at Melbourne Park, rallying to defeat Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday. Her 2015 quarter-final victory additionally occurred to be a three-setter, in opposition to Venus Williams. She takes on a red-hot Iga Swiatek now. She ran right into a red-hot Serena Williams then.
A few generations of American ladies have swept world tennis, and Keys, 29, has been a continuing. She stood witness to Venus and Serena kissing greatness. She stands witness to Coco Gauff rising from teen sensation to Grand Slam champion.
She has seen all of it herself, besides having a Slam subsequent to her identify. Keys celebrated her 14th birthday by turning skilled and within the after-party a couple of months later, grew to become the youngest lady since Martina Hingis to win a WTA degree match. She broke into the world’s high 50 rankings at simply 17, and was nonetheless a teen when she stitched that semi-final run on the 2015 Australian Open. Massive issues have been anticipated from this American flaunting large weapons.
Within the subsequent 10 Slams after the Melbourne breakthrough, Keys had one quarter-final (2015 Wimbledon) to indicate. She would come inside touching distance of breaking open that Slam door by reaching the ultimate of the 2017 US Open, just for an unseeded Sloane Stephens to spring out of nowhere and sneak in as an alternative. Between then and now, Keys made 4 extra semi-finals — together with another in Australia in 2022 — and stopped there. That query, invariably, would begin taking part in in her thoughts.
“There have been periods in my career where I felt like if I didn’t win one (Slam), I hadn’t done enough,” Keys mentioned after her win on Wednesday. “That took a lot of the fun out of the game.”
That’s one factor this 29-year-old semi-finalist wish to inform that 19-year-old semi-finalist.
“If I could go back, I would just say try to enjoy it a little bit more, and not put as much pressure on yourself. That it had to be right now,” Keys mentioned. “I think I’m getting to a point where I’m starting to appreciate my career for what it has been, and it doesn’t have to have a Grand Slam in order for me to look back and say I’ve done a good job and left everything out there.”
It’s a profession outlined by consistency, even when not main titles, over a decade. From 2015 to 2021, Keys has ended each season ranked inside the highest 20. She touched her profession excessive of world No.7 in 2016, when she was the youngest participant within the high 20. She has received 9 WTA titles, the primary coming in 2014 and the newest this month in Adelaide. Among the many final 4 ladies standing in Melbourne, she has the very best variety of Slam wins (114).
“Starting as young as I did, I don’t know if I would’ve had the full awareness that I was going to be here 16 years later. But I think it’s a really great era of tennis right now, because you can still be playing some of your best tennis as 30 is approaching, and even past that,” she mentioned.
Keys positive is taking part in a few of her greatest tennis proper now in Australia, having knocked out tenth seed Danielle Collins, sixth seed Elena Rybakina and Svitolina. Out of the 90 factors she received on Wednesday, 49 have been winners. Svitolina’s rely was lower than half, and so have been her unforced errors. That’s the sort of large recreation, complemented by a deadly serve, that Keys brings to the desk. She lives by it and may die by it, but it’s what might preserve her contest with a rampaging Swiatek energetic on Thursday. As Keys put it, “you’re not trying to out-defend Iga”. She might have misplaced 4 matches in opposition to the Pole, however is among the many few ladies on the tour to have overwhelmed her (in 2022 Cincinnati).
“She’s a good server, returner, moves incredibly well,” Keys mentioned of Swiatek who brushed apart Emma Navarro 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday and has dropped seven video games in her final 4 outings. “The biggest thing that makes her so difficult to beat is because since she moves so well, if you miss your spot just slightly, she has enough time to recover. And then the point goes back to neutral.”