MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Madison Keys planned to walk into the player tunnel at Rod Laver Arena in a quiet moment when nobody was watching, and take a photo of her name listed with the other champions at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
After beating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in last year\u2019s final at Melbourne Park to win her first Grand Slam title, Keys pictured the moment she\u2019d return to the stadium for the first time as defending champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always kind of remembered walking through that tunnel and seeing all the names,\u201d she said Friday, two days before the first major of the year starts. \u201cIt was a little bit of a pinch-me moment where I was like, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m going to be up there.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not seen my name in the tunnel yet. I hope I can go in there when there\u2019s no one else so I can take a picture and send it to my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before facing the media in Melbourne, she couldn\u2019t help but notice other evidence at the venue of her breakthrough triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a really cool photo of me holding the trophy,\u201d Keys said. \u201cGetting to see those, it\u2019s something you dream of in your career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old American said it was easy to look back almost 12 months and think everything worked to perfection, but \u201calso you think about, \u2018Wow, I almost lost.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI was match point down. So many three-set matches. There were some ugly matches. I think it kind of just makes everything a little bit better just because it wasn\u2019t issue-free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keys won a tune-up tournament in Adelaide in 2025 before ending Sabalenka\u2019s 20-match winning streak at the Australian Open. At 29, she was the tournament\u2019s oldest first-time women\u2019s champion. She also set a record as the player with the longest gap between their first two Grand Slam finals \u2014 her first was the 2017 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
The Australian Open victory launched her into a Top 5 ranking the following month. After the breakthrough, though, she was ousted in the French Open quarterfinals, the third round at Wimbledon and had a nervy first-round exit at the U.S. Open. At the season-ending WTA Finals, she lost two group-stage matches. <\/p>\n
Sabalenka, meanwhile, admitted Friday that the loss here to Keys last year was tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe played incredible and overplayed me. Took me a little time to recover,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had matches after that. I worked on my mistake on those matches. <\/p>\n
\u201cGoing to this AO, I\u2019m not really focusing on that last year result but of course I would like to do just a little bit better than I did last year!\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, who beat Keys in the quarterfinals last week en route to the Brisbane International title, plays her first-round match Sunday night against Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah, a wild-card entry from France. <\/p>\n
Keys also lost in the quarterfinals in her title defense in Adelaide earlier this week. But she\u2019s taking it in her stride as she prepares for another career first: defending a major title.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though I\u2019ve been on tour for a long time, this is also still my first experience as that,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really just trying to soak in all of the really cool fun parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeded ninth and on the other side of the draw from Sabalenka, Keys is scheduled to open against Oleksandra Oliynykova of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I\u2019m sure going on court I\u2019m going to be very nervous,\u201d she said, \u201dbut I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever walked on court first round of a Grand Slam and not been nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n
John Pye, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Madison Keys planned to walk into the player tunnel at Rod Laver Arena in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,77,82,593],"class_list":["post-414321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-international","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}