BY Rosemary
Madison Keys has a small personal ritual in mind as she begins her return to Melbourne Park: slipping quietly into the player tunnel at Rod Laver Arena, when no one else is around, to photograph her name etched alongside the champions of the Australian Open.
Nearly a year after she stunned the tennis world by defeating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka to win her first Grand Slam title, the American is back at the season’s opening major as defending champion, a role she is still learning to absorb.
“I’ve always remembered walking through that tunnel and seeing all the names,” Keys said Friday, just days before the tournament begins. “It’s a pinch-me moment, like, ‘Wow, I’m actually going to be up there.’ I haven’t seen my name yet. I’m hoping I can go in when it’s quiet, take a picture, and send it to my mom.”
As she walked around the grounds this week, reminders of last year’s breakthrough were everywhere. One image in particular caught her eye: a photograph of her holding the trophy after the final.
“Getting to see that is really special,” she said. “It’s something you dream about your whole career.”
Keys, now 30, acknowledges that it is tempting to look back on her title run and see it as a flawless stretch of tennis. The reality, she says, was far more precarious. She survived multiple three-set matches and even stared down match point before escaping.
“I was match point down. There were some ugly matches,” she said. “But that almost makes it better, because it wasn’t perfect or easy.”
Her triumph carried historic weight. She ended Sabalenka’s 20-match winning streak in Melbourne, became the oldest first-time women’s champion at the tournament, and set a record for the longest gap between a player’s first two Grand Slam finals, having previously reached the U.S. Open final in 2017. The victory propelled her into the top five of the world rankings the following month.
What followed, however, was a reminder of how unforgiving the sport can be. Keys fell in the quarterfinals at the French Open, exited Wimbledon in the third round, and suffered a tense first-round loss at the U.S. Open. At the WTA Finals, she dropped two of her group-stage matches, unable to recreate the magic of Melbourne.
Sabalenka, for her part, admitted the loss to Keys last year lingered.
“She played incredible tennis and really overplayed me,” Sabalenka said Friday. “It took some time to recover from that. I worked on my mistakes after.”
The two have met since, most recently last week in Brisbane, where Sabalenka defeated Keys in the quarterfinals on her way to the title. Sabalenka opens her Australian Open campaign Sunday night against French wild card Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah.
Keys also arrives in Melbourne off a quarterfinal loss, having fallen earlier this week while defending her title in Adelaide. Still, she says she is embracing the unfamiliar territory of defending a major championship.
“Even though I’ve been on tour a long time, this is still my first experience as a defending champion,” she said. “I’m just trying to soak in all the really cool parts of it.”
Seeded ninth and placed on the opposite side of the draw from Sabalenka, Keys is scheduled to begin her title defense against Ukraine’s Oleksandra Oliynykova.
She expects nerves, and she is at peace with that.
“I’m sure I’ll be very nervous walking on court,” she said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever played the first round of a Grand Slam and not felt nervous. That’s just part of it.”
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