{"id":412487,"date":"2026-01-17T07:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412487\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:32:13","slug":"madison-keys-returns-to-rod-laver-arena-as-australian-open-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412487\/","title":{"rendered":"Madison Keys returns to Rod Laver Arena as Australian Open champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/a><\/p>\n

After beating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> 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<\/a>. 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<\/a> last week en route to the Brisbane International title<\/a>, 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<\/a> 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, \u201cbut 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<\/a><\/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":412488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[25011,652,12083,33424,793,12764,197907,102518,99,69561,428,965],"class_list":["post-412487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-adelaide","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-australian-open","tag-australian-open-tennis-championships","tag-general-news","tag-madison-keys","tag-oleksandra-oliynykova","tag-rod-laver","tag-sports","tag-sports-europe","tag-tennis","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}