Follow us on Google Discover Madison Keys has qualified for the WTA Finals and is currently resting up ahead of that tournament.
Keys won the Australian Open to claim a maiden Grand Slam title back in January, and that instantly makes the year a very successful one for her.
American star Keys admitted being shocked to win the Australian Open, and now she will be hoping to round the year off in style too.
It’s been a tough time of things amid a hectic schedule for a number of players on the WTA Tour this year.
Daria Kasatkina ended her 2025 season recently, suggesting she was at ‘breaking point’ and simply needed to recharge ahead of next year.
Another player to end her year is Elina Svitolina, and now, Keys has lauded these players for making the decision to rest and get ready for next year.
Photo by Robert Prange/Getty ImagesMadison Keys reacts as two WTA players end 2025 season early
The 30-year-old has been sorely missed after choosing to skip the Asian swing this year, with Keys not playing a match since the US Open.
On that occasion, Keys was beaten by Renata Zarazua, who was the world number 82 in one of the shocks of the tournament.
Clearly, that led Keys to choose to take some time away from the tennis court, and she believes that perhaps more players should start prioritising rest a little bit more often and Svitolina and Kasatkina chose to end 2025 early.
She said on The Player’s Box Podcast: “I feel like it’s not that early! I dip out this time of year every year. It’s like see you in January, guys!
“It’s a long year, especially if you play like all of the weeks. I think, for whatever reason, it’s not like we have to play more tournaments, but because a lot of the events have gone to two weeks, it’s more weeks that you are not at home, you are at tournaments, there is more downtime in between tournaments, and I think there is more stress. [It’s like] if I lose early, what am I going to do for the next 10 days because I have a really long time?
“It’s not enough time to go home, but maybe enough time to go somewhere else and train, but not really. How am I going to practice? I just feel like there has been a little bit of an extra layer of stress added to the calendar, just with one of the events being longer, and I think that even though you have the day off in between, it feels more draining.
“And then the stress of before every single match, it’s like if I lose, what is going to happen? Throw back to Madrid when I told you guys I woke up in the middle of the night crying like ‘I don’t want to go to the next 125 week’.
“It was like 3am and I was in full panic mode!”
Keys believes that more people should be praised for taking time out and doesn’t necessarily view it as a particularly bad thing.
She added: “I do think that it’s pretty impressive that people are starting to take time and actually say I am actually going to take some time and prioritise feeling good.
“I feel for a lot of us, there is the stress of I don’t want the zero on my ranking if I miss this tournament, if I miss my required tournaments, that is multiple zeroes. It’s hard not to get sucked into I need to play, I need to play, I need to play.
“Or if you are not playing super well or don’t feel great, I feel like a lot of us start chasing.
WTA has to take note of 2025 Asian swing and make tweaks
Although players do enjoy the Asian swing, it always comes at the end of a long season and on the back of all four Grand Slams.
With that in mind, it hardly feels fair to the people of Asia buying the tickets that most of the top players either choose not to play or aren’t anywhere close to their best.
A number of withdrawals took place across the tournaments in China in 2025, with Emma Raducanu suffering badly and having her blood pressure taken in Wuhan.
As a result, this year’s Asian swing did nothing really other than suggest to the WTA that tweaks need to be made to the tour to allow players ample time to rest their bodies.
Next year’s schedule looks jam-packed once more, and on the back of several players pulling out or ending their year early, it remains to be seen if the WTA will look at things in the future.