A top-20 fixture for all but two years of the past decade, Madison Keys wears Frances Tiafoe’s tongue-in-cheek nickname for her as a badge of honour.
Tiafoe has affectionately called his fellow American and good friend “Mom” in the past for her longevity, perhaps a tad rich coming from someone only two years younger.
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After the 29-year-old Keys charged back from a set down against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina for her third Australian Open semifinal on Wednesday – 10 years after her first – she accepted her veteran status with the territory having scored her first tour-level win at 14.
“It feels great. Starting as young as I did, I don't know if I would have had the full awareness that I was going to be here 16 years later,” Keys said following the 3-6 6-3 6-4 victory at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday.
“But I think it's a really great era of tennis right now because you can still be playing some of your best tennis as 30 is approaching and even past that. I mean, even today Elina was playing fantastic tennis. She was another one that I played juniors with her, and we both kind of went pro really early.
“There's just so many players now that into their 30s they're playing some really great tennis. I think it's really nice to see all of these people that I played juniors with that we're still out here.”
A decade ago, a 19-year-old Keys felled Venus Williams to reach her maiden Slam semifinal before a defeat to Serena Williams at Melbourne Park.
It instantly had her pegged as a future major champion. The closest she has been was a US Open final in 2017 and while her best mark of world No.7 came a year before that, the newly married Keys feels she is playing as well as at any stage in her career.
She sees her place in the sport differently to that rangy teenager at Rod Laver Arena a decade ago.
“I think if I could go back, I would just say to try to enjoy it a little bit more and maybe try not to put as much pressure on yourself that it had to be right now,” she said. “I think there's been a handful of times in my career where it kind of felt like if it didn't happen right now, would it ever happen?
“I think I'm, one, getting to the point where I'm starting to appreciate my career for what it has been, and it doesn't have to have a Grand Slam in order for me to look at it and say, I've done a really good job, and I've really left everything out there.”
Keys entered her sixth showdown with 28th seed Svitolina riding a nine-match winning streak following her ninth career title in Adelaide.
While she had claimed three of those previous meetings, they had not met since Adelaide three years ago and Keys noted her opponent’s enhanced aggression since her return from maternity leave during an upset of fourth seed Jasmine Paolini.
Having conceded the opening set, Keys survived a struggle on serve in a seven-minute opening game of the second set and was never broken again.
Having lifted her consistency while maintaining her already lofty winner count – she finished with 49 – she held her nerve to book a shot at second seed Iga Swiatek, who later downed eighth seed Emma Navarro in straight sets.
Age jokes aside, Keys was steering well clear of messaging Tiafoe ahead of her third Australian Open semifinal.
“I probably won't text him. We have this kind of joke where in the past he wouldn't say anything pre-tournament or anything, and then he would text me, like, in the quarters or the semis or something, and I would lose the next round,” she said.
“So we have this new rule. Like I saw him a few days ago, and I said, ‘Don't text me, I don't want to hear from you at all, just leave me alone and we'll talk after the tournament’.”