Madison Keys was at home in Florida with her left wrist in a cast during last year’s Australian Open, too “sad” to watch more than a handful of matches on TV. She realised not just how much she missed tennis, but the amount of pressure she was unwittingly self-inflicting, and resolved to do things differently when she returned.
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“I think the biggest thing for me is I'm just really enjoying myself out on the court, and I obviously missed a lot of tennis last year and wasn't playing well at the beginning of the year,'' Keys said after a 6-3 6-2 belting of eighth seed Caroline Garcia propelled her into a second Australian Open quarterfinal.
“I realised once I just let things happen and trusted myself and just played my game, good things were happening and good outcomes were happening. So I just keep focusing on that and not putting as much pressure on myself.’’
The new, fitter, surgically-repaired 22-year-old has been powering through her return visit to Melbourne Park with minimal fanfare, playing the type of tennis that carried her to the US Open final just last September, but rarely being talked about as a favourite to repeat the achievement here. Oversight corrected. Forcibly.
There can no longer be any ignoring Keys’ claims to a debut Grand Slam title. Against Garcia, she hit 32 winners, including nine aces, in just 68 minutes. A nice way to start the second week has continued a positive Grand Slam start to the year.
“I'm feeling really good. I feel like I'm playing just solid, consistent tennis. I think today was a good example of that. I think I served well. I think I returned well,'' Keys said after the sixth top-five win of her career. "But I don't think I played unbelievable. I think I just played really solid and smart.
“I wasn't going for unbelievable shots and things like that. I just was waiting for the right ball. Then trusting that I was going to make the right decision when I finally had the opportunity to go for it.'' So, is smart tennis a new thing? “I don't think so,’’ she smiled. “I hope not. I mean, I think I played pretty smart to get to the finals of the US Open and win some titles. Hopefully it's just a little bit more consistently that way.’’
The former world No.7’s season effectively ended with her emotional finals loss to good friend Sloane Stephens at Flushing Meadows. Having tearfully failed to cope with the big occasion, she succumbed soon after to soreness in the wrist that still required ongoing rehabilitation and strengthening work.
Coaches Lindsay Davenport and Dieter Kindlmann helped with the emotional recovery, Keys doing it "tough" for the first 7-10 days, dealing not just with her altered sleeping patterns, but different types of fatigue.
"To have such a great two weeks and then have it end the way that it did, it was really devastating for me, so it definitely took some time to get over,” she said.
"More than that, it was realizing that it was so unexpected, and I was so happy to even get there in the first place after having such a rough beginning of my season, that after telling myself that a couple of times I definitely finally moved on and just wanted to put myself in the same position again so that maybe I could have a different outcome.''
A bonus is that Keys has emerged from the extended off-season in peak physical condition, improved movement adding extra potency to her monster-hitting game ahead of Wednesday’s quarterfinal against 2016 champion Angelique Kerber
Her current ranking of 20 is misleading, and she entered the match against Garcia - who surged to the end of 2017 with her two biggest career titles, in Wuhan and Beijing consecutively during an 11-win run, and qualified for the WTA Finals - as the clear favourite.
Once there, Keys continued the form that had seen her drop just 14 games in her opening three matches, and spend half the time on court as her French opponent, at the tournament where she achieved her breakout major performance by reaching the semis in 2015.
It was no surprise, or disgrace, to lose there to Serena Williams, the compatriot she had long been anointed to succeed
